LIBRARY 

OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

GIFT  OF 

a. 


Accession     1  001  OT  C/sss 


POULTRY 

WEST  OF  THE  ROCKIES 

BY  FRANK  B.  CLEWETTE 


This  Book  is  the  experience,  in  a 
condensed  form,  of  hundreds  of 
potiltrymcn  in  the  West,  and  is 
designed  to  point  out  the  obstacles 
to  poultry-raising,  and  how  to 
overcome  them.  . 


PRICE  FIFTY  CENTS 


Copyrighted 

FRANK  B.  CLEWETTE 

LOS  ANGELES,  CAL. 

1902 


POULTRY 

WEST  OF  THE  ROCKIES 


CUEWETTE 


~L) 


This  Book  is  the  experience,  in  a 
condensed  form,  of  hundreds  of 
poultrymen  in  the  West,  and  is 
designed  to  point  out  the  obstacles 
to  poultry-raising,  and  how  to 
overcome  them. 


Copyrighted  by 

FRANK  B.  CLEWCTTE 

890  West  39th  Street,  Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

1902 


PRESERVATIOM 
COPY  ADDED 
ORIGINAL  TO  BE 
RETAINED 


PRESS  OF 

C.  M.  DAVIS  CO., 

LOS  AHGELES. 


This  book  is  not  infallible— nothing  is.     "  Prove  all  things ;    hold   fast  that 
which  is  good." 


CHAPTER  I. 

POULTRY  IN  THE  GOLDEN  WEST. 

"Will  the  poultry  business  pay  in  the  West?'5  and  "Why  are 
there  not  more  large  poultry  plants?"  and  similar  questions, 
meet  us  very  often  from  people  coming  from  the  East,  and 
indeed  many  who  have  lived  west  of  the  divide  for  years  can- 
not yet  understand  why  we  should  send  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars  each  year  across  the  mountains  to  enrich  our 
prosperous  Kansas  cousins. 

There  are  many  reasons  why  these  things  are  so,  and  one 
is  the  very  prevalent  idea  that  the  chicken  business  is  a  very 
small  thing,  and  hardly  worth  the  time  of  a  man  of  any  abil- 
ity, but  just  fit  for  the  puttering  of  the  women  and  children, 
to  get  a  little  pocket  money  out  of. 

But  what  of  the  business  of  one  man  in  Central  California, 
who,  during  one  year,  has  sold  40,000  eggs,  none  lower  than 
$5.00  per  100,  and  many  single  settings  at  $2.00  for  fifteen? 
Is  that  a  business  worthy  of  a  man?  The  same  can  be  done 
in  almost  any  neighborhood,  but  remember  the  old  advice  of 
Poor  Richard,  "He  that  by  the  plow  would  thrive,  himself 
must  either  hold  or  drive." 

\  o  <*  i  0*7 


POUI/TRY   WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 

The  total  product  of  the  poultry  of  the  United  States  is 
greater  than  the  output  of  any  other  one  class  of  products  in 
the  industrial  world. 

There  are  some  sections  of  our  great  country  which  produce 
the  bulk  of  our  cotton,  other  parts  produce  wheat,  others  corn 
or  sugar,  or  gold  or  iron ;  but  the  old  hen  is  found  in  nearly 
every  farm  yard  from  coast  to  coast,  and  few  city  and  village 
homes  are  without  a  showing  of  our  feathered  friends.  From 
this  fact,  which  no  one  will  deny,  you  will  see  that  though  the 
output  seems  small  in  each  section,  yet  there  is  such  a  great 
number  and  such  a  thorough  distribution  of  the  egg-producer 
that  the  total  production  is  simply  stupendous. 

There  is  no  industry  with  which  we  are  familiar,  connected 
with  the  agricultural  and  stock-raising  interests,  which  will 
yield  so  ready  an  income  and  pay  for  itself  so  quickly  as  the 
poultry  business. 

We  had  a  talk  with  a  man  not  long  ago  who  is  handling  a 
lot  of  hens,  just  for  eggs  for  the  market.  We  asked  him  how 
many  hens  a  man  should  keep,  to  sell  eggs  and  the  by-product 
of  cockerels  and  old  hens,  to  make  a  living,  and  he  replied, 
"Six  hundred  layers,  if  he  doesn't  live  too  high." 

"One  year,"  he  went  on,  "when  I  was  working  up  to  my 
present  number,"  (600  layers)  "and  I  had  to  keep  all  my  old 
hens,  as  I  did  not  want  to  reduce  my  stock,  they  netted  me 
$1.50  per  hen,  and  one  year  I  cleared  $2.00  for  every  hen 
I  had." 

Hens  of  the  grade  this  man  has  can  be  bought  at  an  average 
price  of  50  cents  apiece,  and  can  you  put  $300  in  any  other 
legitimate  interest  you  know  of,  and  with  your  time  devoted 
to  it,  net  you  $1200  a  year,  or  $900,  or  even  $600? 

Do  not  for  a  minute  suppose  that  a  man  who  has  but  little 
knowledge  of  poultry-raising  and  not  much  strength  for  hard 
work,  or,  worse  still,  a  very  great  disinclination  for  it,  can 


POULTRY  IN  THE  GOLDEN  WEST. 

buy  a  lot  of  -hens,  throw  out  some  wheat  to  them  each  day,  and 
at  the  end  of  the  year  enjoy  himself  looking  at  the  good  fat 
deposit  in  the  bank,  for  he  won't  have  it,  and  the  chances  are 
he  won't  have  as  many  birds  as  he  started  with. 

The  care  of  poultry  calls  for  the  same  kind  of  patience  as 
a  woman's  house  work,  from  the  fact  that  it's  never  done; 
but  you  must  go  right  over  the  same  old  routine  day  after  day, 
and  there's  a  great  deal  of  hard,  disagreeable  work  about  it. 
In  fact,  you  will  come  to  the  opinion  of  the  boy  wading  in 
the  pond,  when  the  snapping  turtle  got  hold  of  his  toe,  "y°u've 
got  no  soft  snap." 

One  thinks  it  a  waste  of  business  ability  to  bother  with  a 
few  hens.  You  will  find,  if  you  try  it  on  a  scale  large  enough 
to  make  a  living  from  it,  that  as  one  well  posted  man  re- 
marked, "The  poultry  business  demands  a  knowledge  of  more 
different  kinds  of  business  and  a  more  varied  line  of  informa- 
tion than  any  other  business  in  the  world."  This  may  sound 
extreme,  but  the  measure  of  success  reached  depends  very 
much  on  the  careful  thought  and  study  devoted  to  the  work 
and  the  careful  attention  to  detail.  Then  there  is  the  adapta- 
bility of  the  man.  In  many  lines  of  industry  a  man  may  suc- 
ceed fairly  well,  if  he  make  a  careful  study  of  the  needs  of 
the  business  and  "stays  with  it" ;  but  the  successful  poultry- 
man  is  somewhat  like  the  true  artist,  in  one  way — he  is  "born 
and  not  made."  If  a  man  does  not  like  chickens  and  is  always 
ready  to  throw  something  at  every  hen  he  sees,  and  can't  see 
any  difference  in  them,  he  had  better  leave  the  business  alone 
entirely,  for  there  are  enough  disagreeable  things  about  it  for 
the  man  who  has  a  liking  for  his  birds,  but  if  the  work  is  all 
drudgery  he  will  not  make  as  much  out  of  it  as  the  man  who 
takes  a  deep  interest  in  his  work,  and  knows  many  of  his  flock 
personally,  and  by  name  or  number. 

There  are  many  books  published  on  the  subject  of  poultry- 


6  POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 

keeping  and  feeding,  and  though  they  are  published  east  of 
the  mountains,  and  there  are  some  things  in  them  not  exactly 
applicable  to  our  conditions,  yet  the  articles  on  feeding,  mating, 
breeding,  etc.,  will  work  out  the  same  west  as  east,  and  the 
reports  of  experiments  made  at  the  different  State  experiment 
stations  are  very  instructive  reading,  and  may  be  had  by  writ- 
ing to  the  director  of  the  station  in  the  State  where  such  ex- 
periments are  made,  or  to  the  Agricultural  Department  at 
Washington. 

Don't  be  afraid  of  getting  too  much  information,  for  when 
a  man  thinks  he  doesn't  need  to  study  and  read  on  the  line 
of  business  in  which  he  is  engaged,  be  it  what  it  may,  then  he 
has  about  reached  the  limit  of  his  ability.  We  do  not  mean 
to  convey  the  idea  that  you  must  follow  all  the  advice  you 
read,  or  even  believe  all  of  it,  for  there  are  many  queer  things 
put  in  print.  This  is  just  as  true  of  what  you  see  in  the 
poultry  journals,  as  it  is  of  the  general  press.  One  man  made 
the  remark  once,  that  he  had  been  fooled  so  many  times  that 
he  didn't  believe  anything  he  heard,  and  only  half  what  he 
actually  saw.  Don't  take  anything  for  granted  that  you  see 
in  print,  till  you  see  if  it  will  stand  the  test  of  a  good  hard 
application  of  common  sense. 

Here  is  where  the  test  of  the  up-to-date  poultryman,  as  to 
general  information,  comes  in.  If  he  sees  a  new  remedy  or  a 
different  style  of  feeding,  or  a  new  formula  mentioned,  he 
should  know  about  what  elements  they  contain,  and  whether 
they  are  in  the  right  proportions,  for  the  needs  of  his  birds,  and 
just  about  what  the  effect  will  be,  and  he  should  know,  on  the 
first  symptom  of  trouble,  what  remedy  to  apply  to  remove  the 
cause. 

We  notice  in  a  report  from  the  Rhode  Island  experiment 
station,  that  one  writer  says  that  fowls  need  no  condition 
powders  at  all,  and  we  hear  the  same  thing  very  often  in  our 


POULTRY  IN  THE  GOLDEN  WEST.  ' 

own  talks  with  poultrymen,  but  that  depends  very  much  on 
conditions. 

For  instance,  in  Rhode  Island,  it  is  more  than  likely  that 
at  the  time  the  experiment  was  tried,  the  birds  had  access  to 
ground  where  there  was  grass,  or  weeds,  or  both,  growing, 
and  with  the  dandelion,  mints,  burdock,  etc.,  that  they  could 
pick  up,  the  varied  elements  conducive  to  health  could  be 
found,  or  if  they  had  no  range,  then  the  variety  would  be 
found  in  the  supply  fed  to  them;  and  again,  the  writer  says 
in  the  same  article,  but  on  another  subject,  that  "a  single  test 
proves  nothing,"  and  then,  after  reporting  a  single  test  in  this 
respect,  says  that  hens  "need  no  condition  powders  of  any 
kind." 

An  Eastern  man  who  has  never  seen  a  Western  summer, 
is  not  qualified  to  make  such  a  sweeping  assertion,  and  this  is 
one  of  the  occasions  where  Eastern  advice  is  of  little  use  to 
us,  west  of  the  divide. 

During  the  dry  season,  the  Western  hen  has  almost  no  chance 
at  all  to  get  animal  food,  such  as  her  Eastern  sister  gets  in 
the  grasshoppers,  crickets,  bugs,  and  worms,  in  such  profusion, 
or  the  medicinal  herbs  and  roots  that  combine  with  her  other 
foods  to  supply  all  the  elements  that  a  hen  needs  for  the  pro- 
duction of  eggs  and  the  preservation  of  health,  and  the  man 
who  does  not  supply  these  elements  in  the  time  of  need  does 
not  meet  with  the  greatest  measure  of  success  possible  to  him. 

Do  you  realize  that  the  egg  we  so  unconcernedly  expect 
every  old  hen  to  lay  as  nearly  every  day  as  possible,  no  matter 
how  we  treat  her,  is  one  of  the  most  complex  productions  we 
get  from  any  source  ?  It  is  an  almost  perfect  food  in  the  most 
concentrated  form,  and  has  in  itself  the  embryo  chick,  and  only 
needs  the  application  of  the  right  amount  of  heat,  for  the 
proper  time,  to  produce  the  ancestry  in  miniature,  and  it's  all 


8-  POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 

there  when  we  pick  the  egg  up  from  the  nest  where  Biddy 
has  so  uncomplainingly  left  it  for  us. 

Then  see  to  it  that  the  hen  of  average  weight  who  is  ex- 
pected to  produce  one-fiftieth  of  her  weight  every  time  she 
lays  an  egg,  and  if  she  lays  but  150  eggs  in  a  year,  still  has 
produced  three  times  her  own  weight,  has  the  proper  food  to 
do  it  with.  Some  say  that  hens  must  have  a  good  long  rest 
from  laying.  This  all  depends  on  their  digestive  organs.  Pens 
of  hens  confined,  have  produced  as  high  as  289  eggs  in  a  year 
and  ended  the  test  in  good  conditoin,  and  the  3OO-egg  hen  is 
coming,  and  our  Western  country  can  produce  her,  if  any 
one  can. 


THE  FAMILY  POULTRY  YARD. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  FAMILY  POULTRY  YARD. 

If  we  are  asked  what  to  do  about  keeping  a  few  hens  just 
for  the  purpose  of  supplying  the  family  with  fresh  eggs  and 
occasionally  a  "spring  chicken,"  we  would  say,  do  so  by  all 
means,  for  there  is  a  great  deal  of  satisfaction  in  using  eggs 
that  you  are  sure  are  fresh,  that  come  from  healthy  stock 
and  from  hens  that  are  properly  fed.  We  are  getting  more 
and  more  to  be  a  people  who  make  much  of  the  appearance 
of  things,  even  in  our  eating,  and  if  a  dish  is  offered  us,  even 
our  appetite  for  and  relish  of  the  things  offered  is  very  much 
affected  by  the  appearance  of  it.  This  may  sound  foolish, 
but  just  try  it.  Get  a  frying  pan  hot  with  some  good  butter 
in  it ;  take  a  nice  fresh,  round,  clean  egg  from  your  own  stock, 
perhaps  laid  by  the  hen  who  will  sit  on  your  hand  and  talk 
to  you  while  you  feed  her  with  your  other  hand.  Break  in 
it  that  egg,  with  its  nice,  fat,  yellow  yolk,  and  with  a  white 
that  is  almost  jelly  like  and  piles  up  around  the  yolk,  and  then 
put  beside  it  such  an  egg  as  you  get  at  almost  any  store,  of 
which  the  very  light  colored  yolk  will  either  break  or  spread 
out  thin,  and  the  white  will  be  thin  and  run  like  water;  cook 
and  season  the  two  just  alike,  and  no  man  can  eat  the  two  with 
the  same  relish  or  satisfaction.  Get  a  few  hens,  then,  to  dispose 
of  the  lawn  clippings  and  the  scraps  from  the  kitchen  and 
table,  and  don't  think  that  one  hen  is  as  good  as  another  and 
just  buy  a  few  somewliere  because  they  are  cheap.  They 
may  turn  out  to  be  very  dear.  Remember  that  the  best  is  none 


10 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 


too  good,  and  though  the  eggs  from  a  mixed  lot  of  birds  may 
taste  as  good  as  those  from  better  stock,  still  that  is  not  the 
only  thing  to  be  considered.  If  you  get  some  good  birds 
of  any  standard  variety  and  take  good  care  of  them,  you  will 
be  surprised  to  find  how  soon  you  will  come  to  regard  them 
almost  in  the  light  of  personal  friends  and  you  will  notice  the 
peculiarities  of  each :  how  one  will  come  near  with  an  air  of 
scrutiny,  as  though  wondering  what  that  big  animal  is  made 
of  anyway,  and  if  it  would  be  advisable  to  give  it  a  peck  and 
see  what  it  would  do.  Another  comes  up  and  watches  with 
an  alert  expression,  to  be  the  first  to  see  if  you  should  happen 
to  drop  something  good  to  eat,  and  that  if  you  do  she  may 
be  the  first  to  make  a  dive  for  it.  This  kind  of  a  hen  has  a 
good  digestion  and  is  a  very  steady  layer.  Then  there  is  the 
nervous  hen  who  watches  you  over  her  shoulder,  and  will  keep 
a  box  or  tree  between  you  and  herself  if  possible,  and  is  dead 
sure  you  will  do  something  mean  if-  she  takes  her  eye  off  of 
you  for  an  instant;  and  again  there  is  that  superior  hen  who 
barely  condescends  to  look  in  your  direction,  but,  like  some  peo- 
ple, her  gaze  is  directed  far,  very  far,  beyond  you,  and  she 
don't  know  you  at  all  unless  you  can  do  something  for  her, 
and  then  she  is,  oh !  so  glad  to  see  you.  There  is  a  great  deal 
of  satisfaction  in  having  something  better  than  almost  any  one 
of  our  neighbors,  and  any  pure  blooded  fowl  has  the  marks 
of  aristocracy  in  their  elegant  carriage  and  neat  make  up,  which, 
by  the  way,  is  a  natural  "make  up."  Your  neighbors  will 
admire  your  stock  and  wish  they  had  some,  and  you  can  make 
some  one  happy  by  making  them  a  present  of  a  setting  of  eggs, 
or  you  can  turn  many  an  honest  penny  by  selling  them  for 
hatching,  to  the  many  who  will  be  glad  to  get  them,  and  by 
selling  your  birds  in  the  same  way.  Well!  get  your  birds  of 
some  honest  poultryman,  and  the  man  who  brags  most  is  often 
to  be  trusted  least.  Don't  be  afraid  to  pay  a  good  price,  for 


THE  FAMILY  POULTRY  YARD. 

good  blooded  birds  are  worth  from  $2.00  apiece  up  to  almost 
any  price,  and  a  pen  of  90  to  93  point  birds  are  worth  any- 
where from  $4.00  to  $15.00  for  each  bird.  There  is  money  to 
be  made  from  a  pen  of  ten  to  fifteen  birds  of  good  blood,  if 
you  care  to  advertise  a  little  and  "learn  the  ropes."  One  man 
of  our  own  knowledge  cleared  $131.00  in  a  year  from  four  birds 
that  cost  him  $29.45,  but  we  don't  all  know  how  to  do  that, 
and  then,  too,  he  had  made  a  specialty  of  a  certain  breed  for 
several  years,  and  was  well  known.  If  you  have  a  house  in 
which  chickens  have  been  kept  for  some  time,  and  not  thor- 
oughly clean,  then  that  should  be  attended  to  first  of  all.  If  the 
floor  be  of  boards,  sweep  the  building,  every  inch  of  it,  inside 
and  out,  scrape  and  clean  the  floor,  and  if  it  can  be  closed 
tightly  (and  should  be  so  fixed  before  using),  put  a  couple  of 
brick  on  the  floor,  take  an  old  basin  or  kettle,  put  a  handful 
of  paper  in  it;  on  this  several  small  pieces  of  pine,  and  pour 
about  a  pound  of  sulphur  on  the  center.  Set  the  basin  on 
the  bricks,  set  fire  to  the  paper,  see  that  it  is  well  started,  and 
then  beat  a  retreat,  closing  the  door  tightly  from  the  outside. 
If  there  is  anything  alive  in  that  house  after  the  sulphur 
burns  up,  that  insect  must  be  a  native  of  a  country  with  a 
very  different  atmosphere  from  this.  Leave  the  house  shut 
up  over  night,  or  at  least  two  hours,  so  the  fumes  may  do 
their  work  thoroughly.  The  next  move  should  be  to  turn 
the  hose  on  the  building,  and  give  it  a  good  washing  inside 
and  out,  and  if  you  can,  better  have  the  floor  removed  and  let 
the  ground  get  a  good  soaking.  Then  have  it  dug  up  and 
turned  over,  or,  better  still,  about  six  inches  of  it  removed 
and  carried  off,  and  fill  in  with  coarse  sand  and  gravel.  Use 
a  great  deal  of  the  latter  if  you  can  get  it,  and  have  the 
ground  of  the  whole  run  soaked  well,  and  then  turn  over 
to  a  good  depth  and  covered  with  sand  or  gravel,  or  leave  it 
loose  for  them  to  scratch  and  inspect  for  worms. 


12 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 


Whitewash,  in  which  you  have  put  some  crude  carbolic  acid, 
should  be  applied  to  the  house  inside  and  out,  and  the  amount 
of  acid  may  be  a  pint  to  a  gallon,  more  or  less  as  you  see  fit. 
The  roof  should  be  painted,  and  after  such  treatment  the  lice 
will  be  entirely  gone,  and  your  hens  can  enjoy  their  night's 
rest,  and  there  will  be  no  germs  of  disease  lurking  in  some  cor- 
ner. Now  if  you  think  this  a  great  deal  of  unnecessary  trou- 
ble to  take,  just  ask  some  one  who  knows  from  experience 
how  fast  lice  breed  and  the  contagiousness  of  certain  diseases, 
and  you  will  be  satisfied  that  it  is  well  worth  the  trouble,  and 
you  may  rue  the  day  you  slighted  this  part  of  your  preparation 
for  your  feathered  friends.  If  these  directions  are  followed, 
you  can  feel  as  safe  as  if  all  were  built  of  new  lumber,  and 
you  have  only  to  keep  it  clean,  which,  of  course,  you  will  do 
if  you  mean  to  make  a  success  of  your  venture.  As  yet  we 
haven't  cleaned  the  hens  as  well  as  the  house,  and  we  cannot 
put  them  through  a  sulphur  smudge,  and  it  isn't  safe  to  take 
it  for  granted  that  they  are  perfectly  free  from  lice,  no  matter 
where  they  come  from,  or  how  loud  protestations  the  man  who 
sold  them  to  you  may  have  made ;  he  isn't  real  sure  himself 
and  it  is  the  safest  way  to  take  no  chances. 

The  most  thorough  way  is  a  good  bath;  not  a  dust  bath, 
either,  but  water.  Take  a  good  insecticide  like  chloro-naptho- 
leum,  that  will  mix  with  water ;  use  according  to  the  directions 
on  the  bottle,  use  warm  water  some  bright  warm  morning,  and 
let  every  bird  on  the  place  have  a  good  warm  bath,  and  they 
ought  to  be  clear  of  lice  for  weeks,  and  they  will  look  clean  and 
fresh  for  a  long  time.  It  isn't  easy  to  make  the  bath  penetrate 
to  every  part  under  the  feathers,  but  it  can  be  done,  and  will 
pay  to  be  as  thorough  as  with  the  house  cleaning.  They  won't 
tell  you  that  they  have  enjoyed  the  experience,  but  when  they 
are  picking  and  preening  as  they  dry  off,  you  can  imagine  they 
feel  as  the  old  man  did  when  he  took  a  warm  bath  at  his  doc- 


THE  FAMILY  POULTRY  YARD.  13 

tor's  order.  After  it  was  over  he  said,  "Why,  if  I  had  known 
a  bath  would  make  me  feel  so  good  I  would  have  taken  one 
forty  years  ago."  A  great  deal  of  trouble — of  course  it  is,  but 
it's  more  trouble  for  you  to  buy  grain  for  a  lot  of  hens  that 
are  being  eaten  up  by  lice  till  they  can  hardly  eat  enough  to 
keep  themselves  alive.,,  This  is  where  the  difference  between 
profit  and  loss  comes  in,  with  the  balance  on  the  wrong  side, 
with  a  great  many  people. 

If  hens  and  house  are  thoroughly  cleaned,  at  the  same  time, 
you  will  have  comparativey  little  trouble  to  keep  them  so,  for 
you  can  keep  the  house  clean  by  raking  out  often,  and  using 
fresh  sand,  and  use  a  good  lice  killer  on  the  roosts  and  walls 
once  in  three  or  four  weeks,  and  some  insect  powder  in  the 
nest  boxes.  Don't  forget  and  wait  till  you  see  lice  before  you 
go  after  them.  Don't  imagine,  either,  that  a  louse  is  just  a 
louse  and  nothing  more,  for  there  are  from  thirteen  to  twenty 
different  kinds  that  prey  on  poultry  in  this  prolific  country ; 
and  if  one  kind  don't  beat  you  one  way,  another  may,  and 
when  you  have  everything  else  off  the  hens  there  may  be  a 
few  ticks  on  them,  which  can  hardly  be  gotten  off  any  other 
way  than  by  "dipping,"  and  that  must  be  done  very  thoroughly. 
If  fowls  are  run  down  by  the  constant  irritation  of  lice,  then 
any  disease  is  apt  to  take  hold  of  them,  and  the  chances  are 
all  against  them.  While  if  they  were  all  vigorous  the  disease 
would  "go  by  the  other  side."  This  is  a  clear  case  of  an 
ounce  of  prevention  being  worth  a  pound  of  cure.  Don't  give 
the  fowls  a  house  on  one  side  of  the  barn  where  you  keep  your 
Horse,  or  in  the  barn  itself,  unless  you  are  perfectly  sure  you 
can  keep  them  clean,  for  there  are  some  kinds  of  lice  that  will 
get  on  a  horse  and  it  is  very  hard  to  get  them  off ;  in  fact, 
about  the  only  way  is  to  sprinkle  an  old  blanket  with  lice 
killer — not  too  much  of  it,  however,  as  it  might  loosen  the 
hair.  Fasten  this  blanket  on  every  night  till  he  is  clean,  and 


14 


POULTRY   WKST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 


it  may  be  necessary  to  wash  his  head  and  legs  with  a  solution 
of  carbolic  acid  or  chloro  naptholeum.  Use  the  acid  very 
carefully,  as  it  may  cause  trouble  unless  used  with  caution, 
or  too  strong.  The  best  house  for  a  small  lot  of  hens  is  about 
four  by  five  feet,  with  no  floor,  and  built  so  the  highest  side, 
which  will  be  the  front,  may,  part  of  it,  be  hinged  so  as  to 
be  thrown  open  to  allow  the  sun  to  have  free  access,  for  that 
is  a  great  purifier  in  itself.  Don't  put  your  perches  more 
than  two  feet  from  the  floor,  unless  you  want  to  put  nest 
boxes  under  an  inclined  droppings  board.  Then  arrange  some- 
thing for  the  hens  to  get  down  on  part  way,  like  a  box,  or  a 
board  on  a  couple  of  posts— some  such  arrangement,  for  some 
heavy  hens  will  come  down  with  such  force  as  to  injure  their 
legs  or  feet.  In  short,  make  everything  just,  as  convenient  as 
possible  for  the  hens,  and  the  better  the  hen  the  more  willing 
you  will  be  to  fix  things  for  her  comfort.  Don't  set  a  board 
up  edgewise  and  ask  a  self-respecting  hen  to  roost  on  it  and 
be  uncomfortable  all  night.  We  do  not  advise  using  a  piece  as 
much  as  three  inches  wide,  for  that  is  too  wide  for  the  feet  to 
get  a  good  grip  on,  as  they  always  want  to  do.  Just  watch 
some  chickens  go  to  roost  in  a  tree  some  time  if  you  have 
the  opportunity,  and  notice  that  they  very  seldom  choose  a 
large  limb,  round  though  it  be,  but  will  select  a  branch  not  over 
two  inches  in  diameter,  around  which  their  toes  can  reach 
to  some  extent,  and  they  feel  safer  and  rest  easier  than  on  a 
wide  surface.  We  have  tried  the  experiment  of  using  wide 
flat  roosts  for  hens  and  they  will  almost  invariably  roost  on 
the  front  edge,  with  the  toes  reaching  down  over  the  edge  of 
the  board.  It  is  a  good  idea  to  build  a  couple  of  supports  such 
as  carpenters  use  for  saw  benches  or  "horses"  and  have  notches 
0£  nails  for  holding  the  roosts  firmly  in  place,  and  then  the 
whole  thing  can  be  clear  of  the  walls,  will  not  swing  like 
roosts  suspended  from  the  ceiling,  and  can  be  easily  carried 


THE  FAMILY  POULTRY  YARD. 


15 


outside  to  be  cleaned  by  singeing  with  fire,  washing,  or  sweep- 
ing, or  just  by  air  and  sunshine,  and  your  house  will  be  clear 
for  raking  out,  spading  up,  or  white-washing,  etc. 

Now  a  few  words  about  ventilation.  We  still  believe  this 
to  be  the  cause  of  more  trouble  than  even  lice,  bad  as  they 
are,  and  persistent  in  showing  up  in  hordes  so  soon  after  we 
have  gotten  rid  of  them  so  effectually,  as  we  think.  That  there 
can  be  too  much  air  admitted  to  the  hen-house  almost  anyone 
will  admit,  and  they  will  also  admit  that  if  there  is  a  building 
partly  enclosed  with-  an  opening  at  each  side,  the  air  in  that 
building  will  seem  to  move  more  rapidly  and  will  consequently 
carry  off  more  heat  than  will  be  absorbed  by  air  at  rest;  also 
that  if  there  is  an  opening  at  the  top  and  bottom  of  a  room 
where  there  is  heat,  that  there  will  be  an  inflow  of  cool  air 
and  the  warmer  air  will  be  carried  off  very  rapidly.  Neither 
do  we  believe  in  having  one  whole  side  of  the  hen-house  open, 
for  cool  air  and  fogs  to  enter. 

Some  writers  on  poultry  advise  such  plans,  and  tell  of  those 
who  keep  their  fowls  that  way  and  "never  lose  a  hen  by  sick- 
ness." 

Very  well,  but  the  chances  are  that  as  soon  as  a  bird  is  sick, 
the  hatchet  is  used  where  it  will  do  the  most  good,  and  so,  of 
course,  it  is  not  sickness  that  kills  the  bird.  Then  again,  for 
every  one  who  keeps  hens  that  way  and  "never  lose  any,"  there 
are  scores  who  have  tried  that  way  and  lost  a  great  many  birds. 

Some  people  can  raise  poultry  in  spite  of  adverse  conditions, 
but  it  doesn't  pay  in  dollars  and  cents  to  use  up  a  large  per- 
centage of  the  birds'  supper  to  keep  up  its  heat  during  the 
night,  when  much  could  be  saved  by  proper  construction. 

One  successful  poultryman  reports  that  he  has  tried  all  kinds 
of  ventilation  and  now  uses  the  fireplace  principle,  as  follows : 
The  house  is  built  as  tight  as  possible,  and  then  nail  together 
four  strips  of  ix3-inch  stuff  or  1x4,  in  box  shape,  and  long 


16 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 


enough  to  reach  from  the  ground  to  the  highest  point  of  the 
roof.  Set  this  up  at  one  end  or  side  of  your  house,  with  the 
lower  end  a  few  inches  from  the  floor  to  allow  foul  air  to 
enter,  and  be  carried  out,  or  place  it  against  the  house,  on  the 
outside,  and  cut  a  hole  through  the  wall  into  the  chimney, 
and  you  have  a  good  system  of  ventilation  for  all  cool  weather ; 
and  for  warm  weather,  have  part  of  a  board  near  the  ground, 
at  the  front,  on  hinges,  so  that  it  may  be  raised  and  fastened 
open  to  allow  of  the  passage  of  pure  air,  to  suit  the  require- 
ments of  your  flock. 

We  have  seen  many  chicks  lost,  after  leaving  the  broodei, 
•because  their  quarters  were  not  warm,  and  they  crowded  to- 
gether for  warmth,  and  some  were  soon  too  warm,  and  in  the 
morning  would  catch  cold  and  die.  Keep  a  smaller  number 
in  a  lot,  and  make  their  house  close  enough  to  keep  them 
warm,  and  then  see  that  they  are  compelled  to  scratch  for  their 
breakfast,  as  the  exercise  will  prevent  their  bcoming  chilled 
and  catching  cold. 

We  have  rather  placed  the  "hounds  ahead  of  the  hare/'  but 
have  been  dealing  with  ventilation,  so  this  came  in  here  natur- 
ally. We  have  only  just  got  our  birds,  and  must  not  "count 
our  chicks  before  they're  hatched." 

Now,  to  "resoom,"  as  Josiah  Allen's  wife  says :  You  have 
your  birds  of  the  American  class,  or,  if  you  must  have  white 
eggs,  any  of  the  Mediterraneans,  and  you  should  feed  them 
as  great  a  variety  of  food  as  possible,  cost  and  results  con- 
sidered. 

If  you  feed  rice,  cook  or  soak  it,  to  avoid  danger  by  the 
distension  of  the  crop,  and  they  will  eat  barley  much  more 
readily  if  it  is  soaked  several  hours  before  feeding.  Kaffir 
or  Egyptian  corn  may  be  fed  very  freely,  as  it  swells  very 
little.  Wheat  may  be  used  at  any  time,  but  the  birds  should 
scratch  for  it.  Corn  should  be  fed  sparingly,  except  in  cool 


THE    FAMIIyY    POULTRY   YARD.  l7 

weather,  or  when  the  hens  are  laying  steadily,  but  growing 
birds  need  it  often,  as  meal  in  the  mash,  or  cracked. 

A  bran  mash  with  about  one  part  to  four  of  corn  meal  in  it, 
and  meat  meal  every  day,  and  occasionally  a  little  linseed  meal, 
will  be  relished  by  your  hens,  and  they  will  lay  eggs  to  pay 
you  for  your  generous  feeding.  Give  plenty  of  green  food 
every  day,  if  possible ;  malva,  if  nothing  else,  for  they  will  eat 
it  freely. 

Keep  charcoal  in  some  form  in  the  pens,  with  plenty^  of  stone 
or  shell  grit,  where  they  can  help  themselves,  and  there  is  no 
good  reason  why  you  should  not  get  good  eggs  and  plenty 
of  them. 

A  good  scratching  pen  may  be  made  from  a  large  dry  goods 
box,  by  cutting  it  down  to  about  sixteen  inches  high  and  put- 
ting leaves  or  straw  in  it,  or  nail  together  boards  about  four 
feet  long  and  about  sixteen  inches  high,  as  it  will  take  about 
that  height  to  hold  the  straw  when  the  hens  get  to  work. 
Scatter  the  whole  grain  in  the  straw  and  make  the  hens  work 
for  it. 

If  the  potato  parings  and  scraps  from  all  the  vegetables  used 
in  the  kitchen  are  washed  clean  and  boiled,  then  your  mixture 
of  meals,  with  a  pinch  of  salt  and  pepper,  may  be  stirred  in, 
and  when  cool,  you  have  a  very  fine  evening  meal  for  your 
birds,  and  they  should  be  fed  liberally  at  that  time,  but  through 
the  day  make  them  work  for  their  living,  the  same  as  "us 
humans"  do. 

A  galvanized  iron  trough  may  be  used  to  feed  the  mash  in, 
as  it  should  never  be  thrown  on  the  ground.  A  pretty  good 
wooden  trough  can  be  made  of  boards,  dressed  and  oiled  or 
painted,  and  it  will  last  a  long  time  and  is  easy  to  keep  clean. 
Use  1x6  boards  about  three  feet  long  for  the  bottom.  Cut 
pieces  of  the  same  about  a  foot  or  fourteen  inches  long,  for 
the  ends.  These  will  stand  on  end,  and  the  bottom  piece  will 


18 


POULTRY  WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 


be  nailed  to  them  about  four  inches  from  the  ground.  Nail  a 
strip  of  some  kind  across  the  tops  of  the  end  pieces,  and  a  lath 
on  each  side  of  the  bottom,  and  you  have  a  handy  feed  trough. 

This  trough  prevents  the  birds  from  soiling  the  food,  or 
wasting  it,  and  the  old  boss  hen  can't  keep  all  the  rest  away 
till  she  gets  through  eating.  Keep  all  green  food  off  the 
ground  as  much  as  possible,  by  hanging  up,  or  placing  in  a 
rack  built  for  that  purpose.  If  you  have  small  clover  cutter 
to  cut  all  alfalfa  up  finely,  you  can  stir  it  in  the  mash  and  the 
hens  will  do  well  on  it.  Alfalfa  hay  may  be  used  the  same 
way  by  steaming  or  soaking,  and  it  is  about  as  good  as  the 
green  alfalfa. 

We  do  not  advise  feeding  raw  lime  to  hens,  as  it  is  too 
strong  and  not  in  the  best  form.  The  lime  in  bone  and  shell 
is  better  for  them  and  very  necessary  to  the  production  of 
eggs.  Plaster  is  not  of  much  use,  though  the  sand  in  it,  if  very 
coarse,  is  a  good  grit.  "Sand"  is  a  good  thing  sometimes  for 
man  or  fowl. 

Charcoal  is  one  of  the  greatest  preventives  of  disease  that 
we  have,  for  it  corrects  acidity  of  the  stomach  and  is  a  great 
aid  to  digestion,  and  so  keeps  the  birds  healthy,  and  so  we 
avoid  many  of  the  troubles  which  beset  the  poorly  nourished 
hen  or  chick.  In  fact,  charcoal  is  almost  an  indispensable 
article  in  the  successful  poultry  yard,  and  all  birds  should 
have  access  to  it  in  some  form. 

If  you  have  no  incubator  and  intend  to  hatch  chicks  with 
hens,  try  to  set  two  at  the  same  time,  even  if  you  have  to  buy 
a  setter  occasionally,  and  then  you  can  give  all  the  chicks  to 
one  hen  and  put  the  other  in  the  laying  pen,  and  not  have 
both  of  them  spend  several  weeks  with  their  chicks  when  one 
could  as  well  care  for  them  alone.  Be  sure  you  have  quiet 
hens  to  do  the  setting,  for  a  nervous  one  is  apt  to  get  fright- 


THE  FAMILY  POULTRY  YARD.  19 

ened  or  restless  and  break  an  egg  or  two  in  the  nest,  in  which 
case  it  may  be  necessary  to  wash  the  other  eggs  in  warm  water 
(handling  them  very  carefully)  for  the  shells  must  not  have 
the  pores  closed  or  air  cannot  penetrate  and  the  chick  will 
die.  Such  a  hen  will  communicate  her  nervous  ways  to  the 
chicks  and  they  will  be  more  apt  to  be  wild  and  learn  to  fly 
out  of  the  yard,  than  others  more  quietly  reared,  and  will  not 
do  as  well  in  any  way.  The  young  and  growing  stock  should 
never  be  kept  in  the  same  pen  as  the  laying  hens,  as  some  of 
them  will  not  get  the  proper  food  at  the  proper  time.  The 
little  fellows  will  disturb  the  hen  on  the  nest,  and  may  get 
into  the  nest  and  scratch  everything  out  looking  for  grain,  and 
an  egg  is  broken,  and  the  egg-eating  habit  is  formed,  which 
is  almost  impossible  to  break  them  of,  except  by  "breaking" 
the  bird's  neck.  As  a  precaution  against  egg-eating  we  would 
have  the  nests  very  dark  and  so  that  the  entrance  is  not  to- 
ward the  front  of  the  house  and  run,  but  back  or  side  of  the 
box.  One  good  plan  if  you  have  or  fear  any  such  trouble  is 
to  use  a  dry  goods  box,  or  large  shoe  box,  about  sixteen  inches 
wide  and  deep.  Have  a  nest  in  one  end  and  a  hole 
cut  in  the  bottom  near  the  other  end  large  enough  for  a 
hen  to  pass  through  easily ;  hinge  a  part  of  the  top  for  access 
to  gather  the  eggs ;  then  set  it  up  from  the  ground  about  ten 
inches.  It  will  be  so  dark  in  the  box  that  no  hen  will  go  in 
there  except  to  lay,  and  will  leave  as  soon  as  the  egg  is  de- 
posited. By  having  a  board  five  inches  high  across  in  front 
of  the  nest  no  hen  looking  in  can  see  the  eggs  and  will  not 
be  tempted  in  to  disturb  them. 

If  you  are  keeping  birds  just  for  eggs  and  do  not  intend 
to  raise  any  chicks,  or  after  you  are  through  hatching,  and 
have  a  male  bird  that  you  do  not  intend  to  breed  from  another 
year,  do  not  keep  any  with  the  hens,  as  he  is  a  hearty  eater 
and  you  will  get  just  as  many  eggs,  and  your  neighbors'  temper 


20 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 


may  be  more  serene  about  3  o'clock  every  morning,  if  you  have 
no  chanticleer  to  disturb  their  sweet  repose.  If  you  have  a 
bird  to  fatten  that  is  getting  old,  shut  it  up  in  a  coop  about 
two  by  three  feet  and  high  enough  to  allow  of  a  roost,  so  the 
bird  can  be  off  the  ground  at  will.  Keep  the  coop  dark  and 
away  from  the  flock,  feed  plenty  of  cooked  vegetables,  es- 
pecially turnips  and  potatoes,  with  corn  meal  and  bran,  soak 
or  boil  the  whole  grain  and  give  grit,  charcoal  and  plenty  of 
fresh  water.  Don't  overfeed,  but  give  all  they  will  eat,  and 
in  about  two  weeks  you  will  have  a  fowl  with  tender,  juicy 
flesh  that  you  will  enjoy  eating. 

Mr.  D.  J.  Fairchild,  who  travels  for  the  U.  S.  Agricultural 
Department,  studying  and  introducing  new  grains  and  plants, 
told  us  that  the  finest  poultry  he  ever  ate  was  at  a  town  in 
Austria,  where  they  fattened  pullets  of  four  or  five  months 
on  choice  foods  and  mostly  English  walnuts.  He  reported 
the  flesh  to  be  tender,  juicy,  and  of  a  fine  nutty  flavor,  without 
any  oily  or  fat  taste.  The  food  on  which  poultry  is  fattened 
has  more  to  do  with  the  flavor  of  the  meat  than  most  people 
imagine. 

To  dress  a  fowl  some  advise  dry  plucking  as  follows :  Sus- 
pend the  bird  by  the  feet,  take  hold  of  the  lower  mandible 
with  the  left  hand,  and  then  with  what  is  called  the  French 
killing  knife  or  the  large  blade  of  a  good  pocket  knife,  sharp 
on  both  edges  of  the  point,  make  an  incision  in  the  top  of  the 
mouth  and  thrust  the  knife  through  to  the  brain,  turning  it 
so  as  to  sever  the  main  artery.  The  bird  will  bleed  freely  and 
the  feathers  may  be  removed  very  easily  if  taken  out  at  once. 
Don't  be  afraid  of  hurting  it,  for  when  the  brain  is  struck  all 
sensation  ceases,  and  there  will  be  no  motion  except  a  little 
muscular  contraction.  Do  not  take  hold  of  too  many  feathers 
at  a  time,  especially  with  young  birds,  or  you  will  tear  the 
skin.  If  the  bird  is  not  plucked  very  rapidly  the  feathers  will 


THE  FAMILY  POULTRY  YARD.  21 

stick  soon  after  the  blood  has  run  out,  and  the  picking  will 
be  a  slow  job.  We  prefer  scalding,  but  it  must  be  done  thor- 
oughly and  very  carefully  to  avoid  discoloration  and  tearing 
of  the  skin.  After  killing  and  allowing  the  bird  to  bleed  freely 
immerse  in  a  pail  of  boiling  hot  water,  holding  by  the  legs  and 
moving  it  quickly  up  and  down  twice,  so  the  water  will  pene- 
trate to  the  skin,  and  be  sure  to  immerse  deep  enough  to  reach 
all  the  feathers  on  the  legs.  Take  out  immediately  and  try  the 
feathers  on  the  shank,  and  if  they  do  not  come  easily  dip  once 
more  very  quickly  and  the  feathers  should  be  so  loose  that  they 
can  almost  be  brushed  off  without  any  pulling,  except  on  wings 
and  tail,  which  must  be  taken  out  one  at  a  time. 


22 


POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE    ROCKIES. 


CHAPTER  III. 

COMMERCIAL  POULTRY  HOUSES  AND  RUNS. 

The  general  opinion  among  those  who  have  the  best  chance 
to  know,  is  that  the  West  is  a  better  egg  market  than  any 
other,  all  things  considered,  and  that  an  egg  farm  will  pay 
better  than  broilers,  and  some  say  that  there  is  more  profit  in 
eggs  for  the  market  than  in  fancy  stock.  We  doubt  this  as- 
sertion, but  "it  all  depends"  on  the  aptitude  of  the  man.  For 
housing  poultry  on  a  large  scale,  we  advise  the  use  of  houses 
that  are  to  be  permanent,  about  8x20  feet,  divided  by  a  close 
partition  into  two  roosting  rooms.  This  will  provide  room 
for  a  laying  pen  of  from  twenty-five  to  forty  hens,  and  of  course 
no  male  birds  will  be  allowed  in  these  pens,  as  it  has  been 
thoroughly  proven  that  hens  will  lay  as  many  eggs  without 
a  male  bird  in  the  pens  as  with  one,  and  many  claim  more; 
and  if  no  more,  still  the  food  the  cock  eats  is  wasted,  and  in- 
fertile eggs  will  keep  in  good  condition  longer  than  one  that  is 
fertilized,  and  usually  will  bring  a  better  price. 

Give  each  pen  a  yard  20x150  feet,  which  will  give  you 
thirteen  pens  on  an  acre  of  ground,  and  from  six  hundred 
and  fifty  to  eight  hundred  and  fifty  hens,  or  all  one  man  can 
handle  properly,  on  two  acres. 

Build  your  fences  between  the  yards  from  the  center  ot 
each  house  and  from  a  point  halfway  between  the  houses,  and 
at  the  end  of  each  house  you  will  have  a  space  the  depth  of 
the  house,  and  ten  feet  wide,  which  you  can  make  into  a  scratch- 
ing shed  or  room.  This  could  be  enclosed  with  boards  about 
twenty  inches  high,  but  would  not  build  a  house  over  it  unless 
it  could  be  arranged  to  throw  it  all  open,  for  there  must  be 


COMMERCIAL   POULTRY   HOUSES   AND   RUNS. 

plenty  of  sunshine  here  during  the  cooler  weather  and  shade 
must  be  provided  over  it  in  summer  with  vines  or  canvas. 

We  would  build  the  houses  facing  the  south  or  southeast 
and  a  large  portion  of  the  upper  half  of  each  hinged,  so  that 
it  might  be  opened  during  the  day  to  allow  air  and  sunshine 
to  do  their  cleansing  work.  These  houses  can  be  varied  as  to 
size,  but  this  will  probably  be  found  about  right  for  the  number, 
of  hens  spoken  of.  We  would  build  them  about  five  feet  high 
at  the  back  and  eight  feet  in  front. 

At  the  back  we  would  have  three  roosts  three  feet  from 
the  floor,  the  first  about  ten  inches  from  the  wall,  and  the 
others  sixteen  inches  apart.  This  will  allow  for  a  droppings 
board  four  feet  wide,  sloping  from  below  the  front  roost  to  the 
back  of  the  house,  and  low  enough  to  rest  on  the  top  of  a  row 
of  nest  boxes,  which  will  be  placed  on  the  ground. 

Just  above  the  edge  of  the  droppings  board  at  the  back,  will 
be  a  board  hinged  at  the  top,  so  as  to  be  raised  to  clean  this 
board  (a  leather  strap  with  a  hole  to  slip  over  the  head  of  a 
nail  at  the  right  height,  is  a  little  thing,  but  it  is  just  such 
"little  things"  that  make  work  easier  and  save  time  and  pa- 
tience) . 

By  using  a  little  sand  or  fine,  dry  earth  every  day,  this  clean- 
ing can  be  done  very  quickly,  by  using  a  wide  scraper  made 
of  a  board  nailed  to  a  handle  in  the  shape  of  a  floor  brush  or 
street  sweeper's  brush. 

The  nests  should  be  about  15  inches  square  and  the  same 
height,  which  will  allow  eight  nests  to  each  house  (but  fewer 
may  do),  with  a  small  opening  into  each.  The  second  board 
from  the  bottom  at  the  back  of  the  house,  should  also  be 
hinged,  to  allow  of  gathering  the  eggs  without  entering  the 
yards  or  houses.  The  advantage  of  these  hinged  boards  in  the 
back  of  each  house,  the  houses  being  in  a  large  row  for  a  large 
number  of  laying  hens,  will  be  quickly  seen;  barrels  for  the 


24 


POUT/TRY  WEST  OF  THE  ROCKIES. 


droppings  being  placed  near  enough  to  save  carrying  any  dis- 
tance, will  save  many  steps,  and  in  caring-  for  such  large  num- 
bers, each  item  becomes  of  importance.  For  the  accommoda- 
tion of  some  cranky  hens  which  you  will  find  in  almost  every 
flock,  who  will  prefer  to  go  up  instead  of  down  to  deposit  their 
eggs,  put  a  couple  of  nest  boxes  up  close  to  the  roof  in  one 
corner,  accessible  from  a  small  trap  door  at  the  back.  Ideas 
differ  very  much  as  to  floors.  We  prefer  a  dirt  floor  for  several 
reasons.  There  may  be  an  inch  or  more  of  clean  sand  over  the 
original  soil,  and  a  fine  lawn  rake  will  easily  keep  it  clean.  It 
will  take  up  moisture  from  the  droppings  deposited  there  dur- 
ing the  day,  and  will  be  a  nice  place  for  the  hens  during  a 
shower,  and  what  is  very  important,  it  is  an  easy  floor  for 
the  hens  to  alight  on,  when  flying  down  from  the  roost.  There 
may  be  an  inclined  board  placed  for  going  up  and  down  on 
to  the  roosts,  or  boxes  will  do. 

Some  advise  placing  the  roosts  much  lower,  but  in  that  case 
you  lose  much  of  the  advantage  of  the  droppings  board,  which 
in  this  plan  will  have  a  slope  of  at  least  15  inches.  The  ideal 
house  will  have  no  opening  at  the  top  at  all,  not  even  a  crack« 
for  that  is  where  the  heat  escapes,  and  not  where  the  most 
•deadly  gases  collect,  for  they  are  heavy  and  collect  at  the  -floor, 
and  we  would  advise  having  the  bottom  board  at  the  front 
hinged,  that  it  might  be  hooked  up  at  any  point  according  to 
the  weather,  and  have  fine  netting  over  the  space  to  keep  out 
animals  which  might  add  to  the  "loss"  side  of  your  account. 
The  door  of  each  house  should  be  at  the  corner,  and  this  will 
save  cutting  up  the  boards  to  some  extent,  and  a  penny  saved 
in  labor  is  as  good  as  that  saved  in  any  other  way.  A  win- 
do  w  may  be  placed  in  the  end  of  each  house,  but  we  do  not 
believe  in  planning  for  a  lot  of  glass  to  collect  heat  during  the 
day  when  there  is  plenty  in  the  house  without  it,  and  radiat- 
ing it  rapidly  at  night  when  there  is  none  to  spare.  There  are 


COMMERCIAL   POULTRY   HOUSES   AND   RUNS. 

very  few  hot  nights  here  when  fowls  need  an  open  house  with 
a  current  of  air  blowing  over  them  to  keep  them  cool — as  few, 
in  fact,  as  those  in  which  we  want  such  conditions  ourselves. 
Of  course,  we  realize  that  conditions  vary  considerably  in  the 
States  west  of  the  Rockies,  and  where  people  put  up  cots  and 
hammocks  under  trees  and  sleep  there  all  summer,  much  more 
open  houses  will  be  satisfactory  than  on  the  coast,  but  this 
can  be  had  in  this  plan,  by  raising  the  hinged  upper  front  of 
the  house,  which  can  be  closed  again  as  the  weather  gets 
cooler.  These  are  practically  double  houses,  and  can  be  built 
wholly  or  in  part  of  resawed  or  half-inch  lumber,  except  the 
roof,  which  will  be  of  inch  boards,  about  8  or  10  inches  wide, 
with  battens  over  the  cracks,  or  may  be  shingles  or  shakes. 
Another  good  roof  is  made  of  half-inch  boards,  covered  with 
a  good  roofing  paper,  which  must  be  painted  at  least  once  a 
year.  This  plan  of  double  houses  with  20  feet  of  scratching 
ground  between  them,  will  be  found  to  have  many  advantages 
over  a  continuous  house,  and  we  scarcely  need  covered  alleys 
three  or  four  feet  wide,  to  be  "in  out  of  the  wet"  while  doing 
the  necessary  work.  The  runs  20  feet  wide  may  have  a  row 
of  trees  down  the  center,  each  row  set  diagonally  with  the 
preceding  one,  giving  a  little  more  room  between  than  if  set 
opposite,  or  in  rows  both  ways. 

Peach  trees  are  very  good  for  this  purpose,  as  they  grow 
rapidly,  make  a  dense  shade,  and  the  fruit  will  add  to  your  in- 
come when  ripe,  and  the  birds  will  enjoy  what  drops  off.  The 
branches  do  not  spread  laterally,  inducing  the  fowls  to  roost 
in  the  trees.  Some  plant  fig  trees  for  this  purpose,  as  the 
fowls  like  the  fruit;  but  the  shade  is  not  so  dense,  and  the 
limbs  offer  a  very  inviting  perch.  The  runs  being  150  feet 
or  more  in  length,  with  the  trees  in  the  center,  makes  it  pos- 
sible to  plow  the  runs  with  a  horse  and  keep  the  trees  well  cul- 


26  POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 

tivated  and  the  ground  loose,  so  the  birds  will  have  cause  to 
exercise  when  small  seed  or  grain  is  scattered  over  it.  If  de- 
sired, after  irrigating  and  plowing,  a  temporary  fence  could 
be  thrown  across  the  run  and  a  small  piece  sowed  to  barley  or 
wheat,  which,  when  well  started,  will  make  a  fine  forage 
ground  for  the  flock  while  it  lasts.  Drinking  fountains  may  be 
used,  or  pipes  may  be  laid  through  the  runs  with  a  drip  ar- 
ranged near  a  tree;  but  don't  have  a  pool  of  foul  water  for 
the  hens  to  drink  from.  A  small  earthen  dish  set  under  the 
drip,  with  an  overflow  at  one  side,  would  give  a  place  for  them 
to  drink  it  fresh  and  clean,  and  has  proved  a  good  plan. 

Racks  should  be  put  up  for  loose,  green  food,  so  the  hen 
can  pick  it  to  pieces  without  having  to  drag  it  around  in  the 
dirt.  Cabbage  can  be  hung  up,  or  fastened  to  spikes  driven 
through  a  board,  and  the  heads  pushed  down  upon  them,  keep- 
ing it  firm  and  clean  for  them  to  pick  from;  but  don't  use  too 
much  of  this,  or  the  eggs  will  taste  of  it.  Beets  and  turnips 
can  be  fastened  in  the  same  way.  This  plan  is  highly  recom- 
mended by  a  bright  woman,  who  believes  it  pays  to  use  her 
brain  for  the  betterment  of  her  working  partner's  (Biddy's) 
condition  and  comfort. 

Everything  should  be  done  to  keep  the  food  clean.  All  soft 
feed  placed  in  troughs  that  can  be  easily  washed,  but  grain 
should  be  scattered  or  fed  in  the  scratching  room,  in  a  litter 
of  fine  straw  or  chaff.  For  shade  along  the  end  of  the  yards, 
gum  trees  make  a  rapid  growth,  but  we  would  prefer  pepper 
trees,  as  they  do  not  take  the  strength  of  the  soil  for  such  a 
distance.  Any  good  shade  tree  will  do  for  the  biddies  to  col- 
lect under  to  talk  politics.  In  this,  as  in  other  plans  for  animal 
comfort,  it  is  a  safe  plan  to  think  what  we  would  best  enjoy 
ourselves  if  obliged  to  spend  our  days  in  confinement.  A  "mer- 
ciful man"  will  be  as  merciful  to  his  poultry  as  to  the  "beast" 
mentioned  in  the  quotation. 


FEEDING   FOR   EGGS.  27 


CHAPTER  IV. 
FEEDING  FOR  EGGS. 

The  question  of  what  to  feed  to  produce  eggs  is  one  requir- 
ing much  more  study  than  most  people  give  it. 

Too  many  people  feed  wheat  nearly  all  the  time,  because 
some  one  says  that  is  best,  or  it  is  cheaper  or  more  convenient 
than  corn  or  other  grain ;  and  then,  by  way  of  variety,  they 
will  give  a  bran  mash  for  a  change  (?)  and  expect  the  hens  to 
furnish  eggs,  large  and  often. 

We  do  not  claim  that  hens  will  not  lay  eggs  when  fed  this 
way,  but  the  number  will  be  much  less  than  with  a  better  ration, 
and  the  eggs  produced  will  come  at  a  time  when  the  price  is 
low. 

Few  people  realize  the  egg  is  composed  of  more  different 
elements  than  will  be  found  in  almost  any  other  animal  produc- 
tion, and  that  the  hen  must  manufacture  her  own  weight  in 
eggs  from  three  to  four  times  in  a  year.  To  do  this,  she  must 
have  a  variety  of  food.  In  a  state  of  nature,  the  hen  produces 
eggs  when  the  snows  or  rains  are  over,  and  the  grass  and  herb- 
age is  fresh  and  tender,  insect  life  is  abundant,  and  there  is 
plenty  of  sharp  grit  of  various  kinds  exposed,  so  that  her 
"mills"  do  not  grind  as  slowly  as  at  other  times,  yet  equally 
fine.  The  most  profitable  time  on  an  egg  ranch  is  during  the 
months  when  the  stock  which  is  left  to  shift  for  itself  is  "laying 
off,"  instead  of  laying  eggs.  This  is  the  time  when  the  intel- 
ligent poultryman  will  have  his  hens  ready  to  utilize,  as  nearly 
as  he  can  provide  them,  the  conditions  met  with  in  the  spring 


28 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 


of  the  year.  This  must  be  planned  for,  by  having  plenty  of 
pullets  hatched  in  March  and  April,  or  perhaps  the  slower- 
growing  breeds  in  February,  which  will  give  them  time  to  ma- 
ture and  begin  laying  as  the  warmer  weather  is  over,  and  the 
older  stock  should  be  fed  a  little  sparingly  in  July,  and  perhaps 
a  part  of  August,  except  of  green  food,  and  particularly  of 
alfalfa,  which  should  be  used  freely  the  year  round.  After  this 
enforced  idleness  and  rest  from  egg  production,  induce  your 
hens  to  moult  rapidly  and  early,  by  heavy  yet  judicious  feeding. 
This  reminds  us  of  a  little  girl  who  went  to  a  store  where 
many  foods  are  kept,  and  asked  for  "some  kind  of  feed  to  put 
in  the  bran.  I  don't  remember  what  mama  calls  it,  but  it's 
what  you  use  when  hens  are  mouldy."  She  got  some  linseed 
meal.  Hens  at  this  time  should  have  some  nearly  every  day, 
and  many  "egg  men"  use  it  regularly  as  an  aid  to  egg  produc- 
tion ;  but  now  it  is  used  to  assist  the  shedding-  of  the  old  feath- 
ers, and  the  growth  of  the  new  coat.  We  have  found  a  mixture 
of  one  pound  of  linseed  to  five  of  meat  meal  (the  kind  that  is 
nearly  one-half  blood)  to  be  of  great  help,  used  in  the  mash 
with  a  small  amount  of  good  tonic  powder  and  a  "pinch"  of 
salt.  Cocoanut  meal  is  good  to  mix  with  the  bran,  and  a  small 
proportion  of  corn  meal  makes  a  nice  variety ;  and  as  you  have 
had  your  hens  on  reduced  rations  for  some  time,  they  will 
stand  a  fairly  rich  food  now — only  don't  feed  very  heavily  of 
it  till  they  get  to  laying  well,  and  then  there  is  not  so  much 
danger  of  getting  them  too  fat.  If  you  do  not  feed  corn  meal 
or  some  other  carbonaceous  ingredient  with  the  bran,  then 
give  them  a  light  feed  of  whole  corn  occasionally,  or  soaked 
whole  barley — all  they  want — Kaffir  corn  or  oats,  if  you  can 
get  them.  It  will  pay  to  arrange  things  so  that  you  can  cook 
food  for  your  flock.  Then,  when  you  can  get  small,  imper- 
fect onions,  or  just  the  tops,  and  vegetables  of  any  kind,  you 
can  boil  them  (after  washing  clean),  and  when  soft,  stir  in  your 


FEEDING    FOR   EGGS. 


29 


mixed  meal  for  the  mash ;  salt  liberally,  as  it  is  an  aid  to  diges- 
tion, and  just  as  necessary  for  hens  as  for  people.  Add  the 
proper  proportion  of  meat  meal  with  the  linseed  in  it,  and  you 
have  an  evening  food  that  will  compel  almost  any  hen  to  lay, 
without  waiting  for  a  new  winter  wrap.  Now  that  word 
"evening"  has  met  the  eyes  of  some  one  who  says,  "Why,  my 
folks  back  East  always  fed  the  mash  in  the  morning."  Good 
plan  on  very  cold  mornings,  if  you  only  feed  enough  to  satisfy 
their  huunger,  but  many  of  the  largest  egg  producers  use  the 
mash  at  night,  and  with  the  best  results. 

Here  are  some  of  the  reasons :  Under  similar  conditions 
soft  food  is  more  rapidly  assimilated  than  whole,  hard  grain ; 
so  that  if  a  hen  has  a  full  crop  of  cooked  food  at  bed  time,  she 
can  soon  begin  to  use  it  in  the  production  of  "an  egg  for  your 
breakfast  in  the  morning."  She  wakes  up  hungry,  and  is  ready 
to  sing  and  scratch  as  soon  as  daylight  comes;  while  the  hen 
who  goes  to  roost  with  a  crop  full  of  hard  grain  must  wait  for 
it  to  soak  up,  be  ground  and  digested  before  she  can  utilize  it, 
which  is  a  much  slower  process  with  a  hen  quiet  on  a  roost 
than  it  would  be  if  she  were  on  the  move,  and  you  will  often 
see  some  hens  where  the  last  feed  of  the  day  is  dry  grain,  who 
will  sit  moping  on  the  roost  till  sunrise,  unless  some  special 
inducement  is. offered  to  coax  them  down.  After  the  hens  are 
quiet  and  shut  in  for  the  night,  scatter  grain  in  the  litter  in  your 
scratching  room,  and  lightly  over  the  run,  and  when  you  open 
the  doors  in  the  morning,  you  will  be  pleased  to  see  every  hen 
get  out  and  begin  scratching  as  hard  as  she  can,  and  the  grain 
thus  worked  for  is  rapidly  put  in  shape  so  the  hen  can  use  it. 
A  few  beets  or  some  other  vegetable  will  be  a  welcome  change 
for  them  in  the  early  part  of  the  day,  both  for  food  and  exercise. 
Turnip  tops,  lettuce,  cabbage  or  any  green  stuff  easily  picked 
to  pieces  will  be  acceptable  about  noon,  but  not  much  grain  any 
time  except  in  the  morning,  and  yet  arrange  it  so  the  persistent 


POULTRY  WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 

digger  has  good  reason  to  think  there  is  another  kernel  of  some 
kind  that  is  worth  scratching  for. 

We  advise  cutting  up  all  alfalfa  and  mixing  it  in  the  mash,  for 
it  keeps  the  food  loose  in  the  crop  and  provides  the  necessary 
fibre  and  coarseness  to  keep  the  bowels  in  good  order  and  the 
stem,  which  is  beter  than  the  leaf,  is  all  eaten,  while  fed  in 
long  pieces  in  the  yard  the  stem  would  be  wasted.  At  the  even- 
ing meal  let  them  have  all  they  can  possibly  eat,  and  they  will 
go  to  bed  happy  and  the  eggs  will  be  plenty.  Of  course  the 
birds  must  always  have  fresh  water.  Where  milk  can  be  had  it 
will  pay  to  use  it,  even  if  it  costs  something  and  whether  sweet 
or  sour  let  them  have  all  they  want  once  a  day,  but  not  oftener. 
Milk  in  any  form  is  good  in  the  mash  instead  of  water.  In  pro- 
viding a  variety  of  food  there  is  room  for  the  exercise  of  fine 
business  ability,  for  a  man  must  understand  the  grain  market 
to  know  when  and  where  to  buy ;  how  to  be  on  the  lookout  for 
broken  rice,  slightly  damaged  oatmeal,  stale  bread,  good  hotel 
scraps  and  everything  that  his  hens  can  make  use  of.  "Va- 
riety is  the  spice  of  life"  and  the  more  variety  you  can  get  in 
the  rations  for  laying-hens,  the  better  the  yield  of  eggs,  and 
Iheir  fertility  and  vitality  will  be  increased. 


VARIETY   OP   FOWI,S   FOR   THE   EGG   FARM. 


CHAPTER  V. 
VARIETY  OF  FOWLS  FOR  THE  EGO  FARM* 

When  the  subject  of  eggs  is  mentioned  the  first  thought  of 
many  people  is  Leghorns.  These  are  used  more  extensively  on 
egg  farms  perhaps  than  any  other  variety,  for  several  reasons. 
They  lay  a  great  many  eggs  in  a  year,  are  non-sitters, 
active  in  habit,  are  not  apt  to  get  over-fat,  are  vigorous  and 
hardy,  and  their  eggs  large  and  white.  The  Minorcas  lay  a 
very  large  egg  and  are  a  larger  bird  than  the  Leghorn,  and 
while  the  blacks  are  fairly  hardy  and  will  lay  more  eggs  near  the 
moulting  season,  yet  the  black  legs  and  pin  feathers  are  against 
them.  All  of  the  Mediterranean  breeds  have  some  serious 
drawbacks  when  commercially  considered.  The  young  cock- 
erels and  old  hens  which  must  be  turned  off  each  year,  are  small 
and  do  not  meet  with  a  ready  sale,  or  bring  a  good  price  on 
account  of  their  size  and  the  quality  of  the  flesh.  One  man  in 
Pennsylvania,  who  hatches  his  young  stock  on  the  farm, 
wrings  the  necks  of  all  his  young  cokerels  as  soon  as  he  can  tell 
the  sex,  claiming  that  it  will  not  pay  him  to  raise  them  for 
broilers.  Another  does  not  raise  any  stock  at  all,  but  buys  all 
his  pullets  each  year.  There  are  many  advantages  in  this  plan, 
as  he  can  procure  just  as  many  layers  as  he  can  handle  all  the 
time,  and  add  to  his  flock  just  as  he  sells  off  the  old  ones, 
while  if  he  undertook  to  raise  his  own  stock  he  would  need  to 
have  incubators  and  a  house  for  them,  brooders,  runs,  etc.,  etc., 
and  reduce  the  size  of  his  flock  each  spring  in  order  to  have 
time  to  care  for  the  chicks,  or  hire  extra  help.  We  prefer  the 


POUI/TRY  WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 

yellow-skinned  American  birds  even  for  an  egg  farm,  because 
in  the  first  place  they  can  be  handled,  as  we  have  outlined,  so 
that  they  will  lay  more  eggs  when  eggs  are  high  than  the  Med- 
iterraneans, and  in  fact  during  an  actual  competition  in  egg 
production  of  twelve  months'  duration,  a  pen  of  White  Ply- 
mouth Rocks  took  the  first  prize  with  a  record  of  289  eggs  per 
hen,  a  cross-bred  pen  took  second  with  282,  while  a  pen  of 
Leghorns  had  to  be  satisfied  with  fourth  place. 

When  you  consider  the  fact  that  almost  one-half  of  your 
flock  must  be  sold  off  each  year,  and  that  nearly  as  many  cock- 
erels will  be  hatched  as  you  need  pullets  to  keep  up  your  lay- 
ing pens,  then  one  and  one-half  to  two  pounds  per  hen,  at  ten 
cents  per  pound,  and  from  three  to  eight  cents  apiece  more 
on  broilers,  will  amount  to  quite  a  sum  to  put  on  the  profit 
side  of  your  account. 

The  Barred  Plymouth  Rock  is  the  best  known  of  the  Amer- 
ican class,  and  as  a  rule  people  who  go  to  a  market  to  buy  a  bird, 
young  or  old,  for  the  table,  will  ask  for  a  Plymouth  Rock.  The 
White  Rock  is  just  as  good  a  bird  in  most  points  and  is  better 
in  one — in  not  having  dark  pin  feathers ;  but  is  not  as  well 
known.  The  Wyandottes,  White  and  Buff,  are  very  good  birds 
for  an  egg  farm,  being  very  hardy,  good  layers,  not  nervous 
nor  apt  to  fly  high.  The  flesh  is  good  as  the  Rocks  for  table  use 
and  not  stringy  like  the  very  active  fowls,  and  the  broilers  are 
more  compact  while  small,  and  look  well  when  dressed;  but 
the  grown  birds  are  about  one  pound  lighter  than  the  Rocks. 
The  Buff  Orpington  and  Rhode  Island  Reds  are  good  layers, 
and  the  Orpingtons  are  nearly  equal  to  the  Rocks  in  some  points, 
while  the  Reds  seem  to  be  a  smaller  bird.  Some  people  think 
a  cross  of  two  varieties  may  be  very  good.  Perhaps  the  first 
cross  may  be  as  good  as  either  of  the  original  breeds,  but 
after  that  what  do  you  get  ?  Just  a  little  poorer  fowl  each  year 
and  why  not  keep  the  two  pure  if  you  want  two  varieties  and 


VARIETY   OF   FOWLS   FOR   THE   EGG   FARM. 

not  mix  them  and  have  a  mongrel.  One  writer  says  the  people 
who  are  anxious  to  cross  breed  their  birds  remind  him  of  old 
times  when  many  men  were  not  able  to  sign  their  names;  sq 
it  would  be  written  for  him  and  he  would  simply  make  his 
mark,  thus  X,  and  this  is  all  some  people  can  do  with  poultry — 
just  make  a  cross  and  nothing  more. 

The  Asiatics  scarcely  come  into  the  question  at  all,  as  they 
are  low  on  egg  production,  except  where  a  strain  has  been  bred 
for  eggs  for  some  years;  and  the  Hamburgs  are  small,  both 
body  and  eggs. 

The  question  of  how  to  keep  up  the  flock  will  come  in  here 
after  you  have  decided  what  breed  to  keep.  One  of  the  great- 
est advantages  of  raising  your  own  stock,  and  all  points  here 
will  apply  to  the  dozens  raised  as  well  as  the  hundreds,  is  that 
you  can  select  your  breeding  pens  and  use  only  the  birds  which 
come  the  most  nearly  to  the  standard  you  are  aiming  at — be 
that  eggs  or  meat  or  show  birds. 

For  your  egg  stock  you  should  use  good  sized,  vigorous  birds 
that  produce  the  largest  well  shaped  egg,  and  that  have  no 
serious  faults  and  one  of  these  is  a  quarrelsome  disposition. 
An  ugly  nervous  hen,  that  picks  at  her  neighbor  and  will  dash 
in  among  a  lot  of  her  sisters  and  cousins  and  rout  them  out 
of  their  dust  or  sun  bath,  or  drive  them  away  from  food  or 
water,  is  reducing  your  bank  account  and  should  be  disposed  of. 

Have  your  incubators  and  brooders,  then  breed  from  your 
most  profitable  hens;  give  the  young  chicks  dry  grains  and 
seeds,  all  the  green  food  they  will  eat  and  enough  meat  in  some 
form  so  that  they  can  grow  their  feathers  rapidly  without  get- 
ting weak.  Keep  all  lice  off  by  the  liberal  use  of  insect  powder, 
cleanliness  and  sunshine,  with  a  prepared  ointment  in  case  of 
head  lice.  But  don't  grease  the  head  with  lard,  unless  you  are 
"agin  the  government"  and  want  to  "reduce  the  surplus" ;  and 
above  all  give  the  growing  pullet  a  great  deal  of  exercise.  Take 


34  POULTRY  WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 

all  the  cockerels  out  at  four  or  five  weeks  old  and  keep  in 
separate  brooders.  Keep  them  a  little  warmer  and  feed  liberally 
from  this  time  on  and  with  a  good  mash  once  a  day,  with  one 
part  in  four  of  cornmeal,  or  feed  cracked  corn  once  a  day. 
Give  plenty  of  meat,  but  don't  overfeed  and  cause  them  to 
loose  their  appetites ;  but  force  them  up  to  one  and  a  half  or  two 
pounds  as  soon  as  possible  and  then  let  them  go.  Don't  feed 
them  a  day  longer  than  necessary  to  get  them  ready  for  mar- 
ket. If  you  do  not  wish  to  build  properly  for  hatching  in  in- 
cubators and  brooders,  then  a  lot  of  old  hens  of  a  good  set- 
ting variety  must  be  kept,  and  many  people  use  brooders  for 
the  chicks  hatched  under  hens  and  set  the  hen  again  or  break 
her  up  and  get  her  to  laying  again.  We  know  a  Lanshan  hen, 
over  six  years  old,  that  has  set  continuously  for  nine  weeks 
several  times  and  keeps  in  good  flesh  all  the  time,  but  she  is 
kept  clean.  While  it  may  be  done,  it  does  seem  one  kind  of 
"cruelty  to  animals"  that  few,  I  hope,  will  countenance  or 
practice. 

If  you  have  good  stock  you  can  find  neighbors  who  will  be 
glad  to  hatch  for  you  and  raise  the  chicks  to  three  or  four 
weeks  old  for  one-half,  or  terms  can  be  made  on  which  the 
pullets  can  be  kept  to  laying  age,  the  other  party  to  have  all 
the  cockerels  and  you  pay  a  certain  price  for  the  raising  of  the 
pullets.  Whichever  of  these  ways  is  used  there  must  be  care- 
ful supervision  by  the  one  in  charge,  for  a  pullet  to  make  a 
good  layer  must  have  good  muscle  and  bone- forming  food  like 
oats  and  a  variety  of  grains,  with  not  too  much  corn;  meat 
in  some  form  regularly,  all  the  alfalfa  and  other  green  food  she 
will  eat  and  a  great  deal  of  exercise,  and  this  must  be  given 
in  the  scratching  room  and  a  loose  well  plowed  yard. 


CROPS   TO   RAISK.  35 


CHAPTER  VI. 
CROPS  TO  RAISE. 

The  first  thing  quite  naturally  that  you  expect  to  raise  on  a 
poultry  ranch  is  alfalfa.  This  is  a  good  muscle  and  bone- 
forming  food,  has  a  good  percentage  of  protien  in  it,  and 
when  all  the  stalk  is  cut  and  mixed  with  the  mash  it  provides 
the  coarse  fibrous  matter  that  sometimes  reminds  us  of  the 
boy's  definition  of  salt — "it's  the  stuff  that  makes  potatoes 
taste  bad  when  you  don't  put  any  in."  This  fibrous  matter  is 
good  to  absorb  moisture  in  the  crop  and  gizzard,  keeps  the 
fine  foods  separated  and  is,  taken  altogether,  a  very  essential 
part  of  a  hen's  diet,  aside  from  the  nutritive  value  which  is 
much  greater  than  that  of  the  leaves.  Alfalfa  needs  plenty  of 
water  and  if  you  haven't  a  good  supply  of  water  on  your  place 
you  will  find  yourself  seriously  handicapped  from  the  first. 
Three  acres  of  alfalfa  should  be  enough  to  keep  your  flock  of 
700  or  800  hens  and  a  cow  going  most  of  the  time,  and  when 
this  rests  for  a  time  in  cold  weather,  you  should  have  beets  or 
turnips  and  some  cabbages  to  take  its  place ;  or  use  dry  alfalfa 
chopped  fine  and  scalded  and  mixed  with  your  mash.  A  small 
patch  of  pumpkins  will  furnish  a  good  food  for  the  production 
of  milk,  and  the  hens  enjoy  picking  at  a  big  piece  of  rich,  juicy 
pumpkin,  and  when  it  comes  to  a  diet  for  fattening  stock  for  the 
choice  customers  there  is  nothing  better  than  a  bran  and  meal 
mash  made  in  a  big  kettle  of  boiled  potatoes,  turnips  and  pump- 
kins, on  account  of  the  starch  and  sugar  contained  in  them; 
and  juiciness  and  flavor  will  be  imparted  to  the  flesh  of  the 


36  POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 

bird.  The  sugar  beet  is  very  rich  in  fattening  properties,  too, 
but  the  large  mangel  wurzel  is  usually  raised  and  is  not  very 
rich  in  food  values.  All  vegetables  raised  on  a  poultry  ranch 
should  be  put  in  long  rows,  so  they  may  be  worked  with  a 
horse  cultivator,  and  you  should  have  one  with  many  attach- 
ments so  you  can  plow,  hoe  or  harrow  and  cultivate  with  it  as 
your  crop  may  require.  Don't  try  to  raise  much  small  fruit  or 
berries,  for  you  will  have  more  than  your  hands  full  when  the 
fruit  work  is  on  if  you  do,  and  the  hens  or  chicks  will  be  apt 
to  suffer  and  your  pocket  is  next  in  line.  In  short,  don't  allow 
conflicting  interests,  for  if  you  have  too  many  irons  in  the  fire 
some  one  or  more  of  them  will  be  too  hot  or  too  cold  all  of 
the  time.  Concentration  of  effort  on  one  thing  is  the  watch- 
word in  all  lines  of  business  right  now,  and  if  you  can't  do 
something  a  little  better  than  anyone  else,  you  are  not  going  to 
be  as  successful  as  you  would  like  to  be.  Well,  we  were  talk- 
ing about  our  crops.  You  will  be  surprised  to  see  what  an  in- 
crease there  will  be  in  all  kinds  of  crops  after  you  begin  to  use 
fertilizer  from  the  hen  houses.  One  man  in  New  York  tried 
two  acres  of  wheat  side  by  side,  one  with  fertilizer  and  the 
other  without,  and  the  latter  yield  was  31^2  bushels,  while  the 
former  yielded  over  57  bushels. 

Mr.  James  Rankin  has  said  lately  that  by  using  droppings 
from  his  duck  houses  on  his  grass  land,  he  has  raised  three 
crops  a  year,  and  not  as  good  a  crop  as  alfalfa,  either;  and 
wouldn't  he  be  surprised  to  see  us  cut  alfalfa  from  six  to 
eight  times  a  year?  Oh,  we  have  a  paradise  for  the  poultry- 
man,  if  he  will  only  build  right,  feed  right  and  keep  the  lice 
down.  Now  a  good  plan  would  be  to  plant  a  few  acres  to  wheat 
just  as  early  in  the  fall  as  convenient,  say  November.  Irri- 
gate the  ground  if  the  early  rain  is  not  enough  to  start  it,  and 
then  as  soon  as  it  is  fairly  turned  yellow,  cut  it  and  let  it 
cure  before  stacking.  It  may  be  put  up  loose  and  it  is  just 


CROPS   TO   RAISE.  3 

the  thing  for  your  scratching  rooms,  and  how  the  hens  and 
chicks  will  enjoy  threshing  it  out"!  As  soon  as  the  wheat  is 
off  irrigate  again  and  put  in  corn  or  Kaffir  corn,  or  perhaps 
part  of  the  ground  to  millet  to  be  used  in  fall  and  winter, 
as  you  have  used  the  wheat  during  summer,  as  an  exerciser 
and  food  combined.  If  you  have  only  a  small  place  you  can 
probably  rent  hill  land  nearby  suitable  for  raising  a  crop  of 
wheat  without  irrigation,  without  paying  a  very  high  rent  for 
it.  A  patch  of  sunflowers,  say  a  half  acre  or  more,  planted  in 
rows  and  about  a  foot  apart  in  the  row  and  so  that  you  can 
cultivate  them  with  a  horse,  will  be  a  very  paying  crop,  for  you 
will  get  the  oily  seed  for  the  moulting  season  and  cold  weather, 
for  which  your  hens  will  say  "thank  you"  as  effectually  as  for 
any  crop  you  can  raise.  The  heads  when  put  in  the  pens  should 
be  hung  up  so  that  the  hens  can  reach  them  to  pick  out  the 
seeds.  If  thrown  on  the  ground  the  seeds  will  be  on  the  side 
that  is  down  and  the  hens  cannot  get  at  them.  Two  or  three 
fair-sized  heads  each  day  would  be  plenty  for  a  pen  of  30  to  40 
hens.  The  stalks  make  pretty  good  fuel  for  your  food  cooker 
if  you  pull  them  as  soon  as  the  seed  is  fairly  ripe  and  the 
stalk  is  not  dead,  but  still  green.  It  will  then  dry  quite  hard 
and  woody.  In  some  parts  of  Russia  the  sunflower  is  grown 
very  extensively  for  the  oil  in  which  the  seed  abounds.  The 
seeds  are  also  eaten  raw  by  the  people  or  roasted  like  peanuts, 
while  the  stalks  form  a  large  part  of  the  fuel  of  the  peasants  in 
those  districts.  The  roasted  seeds  are  sold  in  the  streets  of  New 
York  and  are  said  to  be  very  palatable  and  nourishing.  Field 
peas,  such  as  are  raised  for  fattening  hogs  in  some  parts  of  the 
East  and  in  Canada,  are  an  excellent  food  for  hens,  having 
some  properties  not  carried  by  the  cereals. 

"Variety  is  the  spice  of  life"  is  not  more  true  of  anything 
than  of  poultry  feeding  and  it  will  pay  to  raise  as  large  a 
variety  of  crops  as  your  circumstances  will  allow.  Fennugreek 


38  POULTRY  WKST  OF  THE  ROCKIES. 

is  a  plant  now  being  introduced  from  Egypt  by  the  United 
States  Agricultural  Department  which  will  be  tried  in  the 
Coast  states.  It  somewhat  resembles  Kaffir  corn  in  growth,  has 
a  great  many  leaves  and  is  often  cut  just  before  the  seed  ripens 
and  used  for  fattening  cattle.  But  the  seed  when  ripe  is  very 
rich  and  has  a  strong  flavor  and  is  used  in  the  best  condition 
powers  and  "egg  makers,"  such  as  Sheridan's  Lee's,  Nesbit's 
and  several  others.  With  plenty  of  water  your  land  may  be 
producing  something  nearly  all  the  year  round.  In  this  part 
of  the  business  we  can  learn  much  from  the  Chinaman,  who 
has  something  growing  all  the  time. 


INCUBATORS  AND   BROODERS.  39 


CHAPTER  VII. 
INCUBATORS  AND  BROODERS. 

Many,  yes,  most  of  the  incubator  companies  try  to  make  us 
believe  that  their  particular  machine  is  "it."  The  scientific 
knowledge  of  artificial  hatching  has  become  so  general  that  we 
only  occasionally  hear  some  one  say,  "Why !  were  these  chicks 
hatched  in  an  incubator?  Why,  for  the  land's  sake,  I  never 
heard  of  such  a  thing."  And  yet  we  do  hear  it  sometimes. 

In  this  western  country  where  we  claim  to  be  pretty  nearly 
up-to-date  in  everything,  there  are  comparatively  few  people 
who  do  not  know  that  the  modern  incubator  and  brooder  are 
successful  when  carefully  handled,  and  almost  all  poultrymen 
prefer  artificial  incubation  to  the  natural  method. 

There  is,  however,  one  lady  in  this  modern  and  enlightened 
country  who  claims  that  an  incubator-hatched  chicken  never 
lays  a  good  egg  and  that  the  flesh  is  never  as  good  as  that  of  a 
chick  hatched  under  a  hen.  She  even  went  so  far  one  day  as  to 
send  a  grown  fowl  back  to  the  market  where  she  had  ordered 
it,  claiming  that  she  could  tell  by  its  appearance  that  it  was 
hatched  in  an  incubator  and  she  would  not  eat  it. 

Others  claim  that  stock  hatched  and  reared  artificially  will 
soon  loose  their  vigor  and  vitality.  This  is  entirely  refuted  by 
the  fact  that  in  some  parts  of  Egypt  where  most  of  the  poultry 
has  been  thus  raised  for  ages,  the  vitality  is  not  impaired.  Such 
ideas  are  fallacious  in  the  extreme  and  most  people  are  better 
posted  than  to  hold  such  peculiar  notions. 

One  day  a  grown  man,  looking  at  an  incubator,  asked  about  a 


40  POULTRY  WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 

slat  or  open  bottom  tray  and  was  told  that  the  chicks  dropped 
through  there  as  they  hatched.  "But,"  says  he,  "do  you  open 
the  door  to  pick  the  shell  off  the  chick  ?"  And  when  told  that 
they  simply  broke  the  shell  and  got  out  the  same  as  under  a 
hen,  he  remarked,  "Well,  now,  I  always  supposed  the  hen 
reached  in  the  nest  and  picked  the  shell  off  the  little  fellows. 
I  didn't  know  they  got  out  alone." 

There  are  many  things  that  some  people  don't  know,  and 
no  one  knows  all  there  is  to  know  about  the  poultry  business. 
One  old  gentleman  told  us  one  day  that  he  had  been  keeping 
poultry  for  forty  years  and  there  was  a  great  deal  for  him  to 
learn  yet.  Another  said  that  when  he  was  a  young  man  he  sup- 
posed he  knew  all  there  was  to  know  about  poultry,  but  in  the 
West  he  found  much  to  learn  every  day. 

All  things  considered,  we  would  rather  buy  a  machine  made 
near  home  than  to  send  two  thousand  miles  for  one,  even  if 
we  thought  the  better  advertised  one  might  be  a  trifle  the  best, 
for  the  chances  are  that  something  may  go  wrong  with  any 
machine  or  something  come  up  that  you  don't  understand,  and 
while  waiting  two  weeks  for  an  answer  to  a  letter  your  eggs 
are  spoiled  and  you  have  lost  much  valuable  time ;  while  if  your 
machine  is  made  near  home  you  can  save  your  hatch  by  a  little 
care  while  getting  instructions  or  repairs  from  the  manufac- 
turer. In  the  Eastern  states  no  one  would  think  of  running  an 
incubator  in  a  room  during  the  winter,  where  the  temperature 
varies  as  much  as  30  degres,  and  yet  it  is  done  in  California 
every  day  and  the  poor  incubator  gets  all  the  blame  if  it  loses 
a  few  degrees  during  the  night  in  a  thin-walled  house  where 
the  sun  warms  the  room  to  70  or  80  degrees  during  the  day, 
and  the  temperature  falls  to  40  or  50  degrees  at  night.  The 
machines  which  used  to  do  good  work  in  the  east,  known  as 
"tank  machines,"  holding  a  large  quantity  of  water,  are  not  so 
desirable  in  the  west  as  those  in  which  the  change  of  heat  can 


INCUBATORS  AND  BREEDERS.  4l 

be  made  rapidly,  to  meet  the  outside  change  of  temperature  from 
early  morning  to  the  heat  of  the  day.  The  ventilation  must  be 
under  control,  and  in  some  localities,  and  with  some  machines, 
supplemented  by  proper  airing.  While  a  variation  of  two 
or  three  degrees  is  not  good,  yet  it  is  not  so  harmful  as 
as  a  lack  of  proper  airing,  for  though  a  chick  has  a  per- 
fect heat  all  the  way  through  the  hatch,  if  it  has  not  the 
proper  amount  of  oxygen  supplied  by  fresh  air  and  ab- 
sorption of  carbonic  acid  gas  by  the  same,  it  cannot  come  out 
vigorous  and  healthy.  Again,  the  manufacturer  who  claims 
that  he  has  solved  all  the  problems  of  ventilation  and  mois- 
ture, and  that  his  machine  will  regulate  those  things  under 
all  conditions,  either  knows  he  is — well,  you  know — or  else  he 
don't  know  what  varieties  of  climatic  conditions  we  can  furnish 
in  this  empire  west  of  the  "great  divide." 

A  good,  patient  man  said  once,  when  exasperated  beyond 
measure,  without  cause,  "We  sell  incubators,  but  we  don't  agree 
to  furnish  brains  to  run  them,"  and  that  person  woke  up  to 
the  fact  that  as  many  other  people  were  running  the  same  ma- 
chine with  great  success,  it  must  be  possible,  and  developed  by  a 
little  study  into  a  very  good  handler  of  the  machine. 

The  whole  question  of  hatching  in  incubators  hinges  on  a 
clear  understanding  of  the  needs  of  the  chick,  from  the  proper 
feeding  and  exercise  of  the  parent  stock  to  the  breaking  of  the 
shell  by  the  little  point  on  the  chick's  beak,  provided  for  that 
specific  purpose. 

When  running  an  incubator  of  any  kind  be  sure  you  get  a 
large  air  space  in  the  egg  by  a  proper  application  of  moisture 
or  by  airing  the  egg.  The  instructions  given  out  with  most  in- 
cubators have  some  kind  of  a  chart  showing  about  the  size 
of  air  space  that  they  consider  necessary  in  the  egg  to  hatch 
healthy  chicks.  We  have  never  yet  seen  such  a  chart  in  which 


POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 

the  air  space  seemed  abnormally  large,  but  have  seen  some  in 
which  it  was  too  small. 

At  about  the  seventeenth  day  this  space  is  at  its  largest  size, 
for  after  this  time  the  growth  of  the  chick  partially  fills  up  the 
space,  and  while  it  breaks  the  shell  with  its  bill  it  pushes  with 
one  foot,  which  is  at  one  side  of  its  head,  and  if  its  growth 
has  been  added  to  by  the  amount  of  moisture  left  in  the  egg, 
which  should  have  been  evaporated  by  airing,  then  the  chick 
will  be  cramped  and  unable  to  make  the  first  movements  which 
gradually  increase  and  result  in  the  rending  of  the  shell  and  the 
release  of  the  chick. 

Again,  the  pressure  on  the  chick,  while  not  preventing  its 
getting  out  of  the  shell,  will  often  result  in  throwing  a  joint 
out  of  place  and  you  have  a  cripple  which  must  be  killed,  or 
cured — if  you  can. 

When  you  have  a  nice  lot  of  chicks  in  the  bottom  of  your 
incubator  (for  they  must  go  through  to  the  lower  part  of  the 
machine  that  they  may  not  get  too  warm  and  be  out  of  the 
way  of  those  just  breaking  the  shell)  do  not  begin  to  figure 
out  how  much  money  you  will  get  for  so  many  dozen  at  so 
much  per  dozen,  for  you  are  not  out  of  the  woods  yet  by  several 
large  trees.  One  party  somewhere  in  California  told  us  that 
they  lost  seventeen  hundred  chicks  in  one  season.  Too  bad, 
wasn't  it,  for  the  chicks — but  say,  it  seems  as  though  almost 
any  one  would  find  out  the  trouble  before  the  mortality  reached 
such  figures,  doesn't  it  to  you?  You  can't  raise  chicks  un- 
less you  make  a  study  of  their  needs  and  supply  them  as  to 
food,  warmth  and  fresh  air.  Give  the  little  fellows  a  place 
to  find  a  cooler  atmosphere  when  they  are  too  warm,  for  a  chick 
never  is  so  sound  asleep  but  that  a  radical  change  in  the  tem- 
perature of  the  hover  will  cause  every  one  to  move  in  less  than 
ten  minutes,  and  they  will  find  a  comfortable  place  before  they 
settle  down  again  if  there  is  one  to  be  found ;  and  they  do  not  all 


INCUBATORS  AND  BROODERS.  43 

want  the  same  amount  of  heat.  Haven't  you  often  noticed 
some  precocious  youngster  with  his  mother,  who  will  spend 
the  most  of  his  time  partly  or  wholly  out  from  under  the  pro- 
tecting wing,  while  others  will  not  show  even  a  head  out?  Be 
very  careful  if  using  bottom  heat  in  your  brooder  and  don't  keep 
them  too  warm. 


44  POULTRY  WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
WHAT  TO  FEED. 

Many  people  say  feed  hard  boiled  egg  the  first  thing,  and 
one  writer  went  so  far  as  to  say,  "hard  boiled  egg  is  the  natural 
first  food  of  a  chick."  Say,  those  chicks  of  his  in  a  state 
of  nature  must  have  been  hatched  on  the  edge  of  a  volcano, 
or  near  one  of  our  hot  sulphur  springs,  and  even  then  after 
the  egg  was  boiled  and  hard  they  would  have  a  hard  time  get- 
ting it  out  of  the  kettle  it  was  boiled  in,  now  wouldn't  they? 
Where  nature  and  the  egg  come  together  is  in  the  fact  that 
the  last  act  of  the  life  of  the  embryo  before  maturity  is  the 
absorption  of  the  yolk  of  the  egg,  and  after  the  chick  digests 
that  in  the  first  day  of  its  life,  we  do  not  believe  in  giving 
more  of  the  same  thing,  and  if  you  study  nature  you  will  find 
them  eating  small  seeds  and  fine  grit  of  some  kind  and 
they  will  pick  up  anything  shining  or  white,  green  grass  or 
leaves,  or  any  small  moving  thing.  Water  will  be  taken  from 
grass  or  leaves  and  if  a  little  puddle  is  encountered,  their  im- 
mediate business  is  to  dip  their  bils  in  it  and  hold  them  up 
"just  like  mamma  does." 

Then  give  your  chicks  water  as  soon  as  they  will  move  out 
of  the  brooder;  a  neat  and  convenient  way  is  to  take  a  small 
tin  fruit  can  or  pail,  punch  a  hole  about  half  an  inch  from  the 
top,  fill  with  water,  place  over  it  the  cover  of  a  lard  pail  enough 
larger  to  give  a  chance  to  drink  from,  but  not  to  get  into,  and 
when  you  invert  your  "home-made"  drinking  fountain  you  will 
find  the  water  will  stand  in  the  cover,  up  to  the  height  of  the 


WHAT  TO  FEKD.  45 

hole,  and  it  will  stay  fresh  and  sweet  until  all  is  gone,  being 
preferable  to  an  open  dish,  which  can  never  be  kept  clean, 
and  is  always  being  upset,  if  possible,  to  say  nothing  of  catch- 
ing the  dust  and  litter  always  in  motion  near  the  lively  little 
atoms  of  puff  balls,  who  scratch  in  just  the  cutest  imitation 
of  their  elders  before  they  are  a  day  old.  Provide  green  stuff 
like  tender  lettuce  or  beet  leaves,  hung  up  for  them  to  pick  at, 
but  not  to  walk  on,  small  seeds,  broken  rice,  rolled  oats  (dry) 
and  a  little  fine  grit  and  charcoal  where  they  can  get  it  when 
they  want  it.  This  can  be  placed  in  an  open  dish,  but  a  better 
plan  is  a  tiny  feed  trough  with  bars  or  wires  across  the  top  to 
keep  them  out  of  it  as  a  promenade ;  bread  and  cracker  crumbs 
and  boiled  egg  sparingly  the  second  day  and  after.  Some  lean 
beef  on  a  bone  can  be  given  after  the  third  day,  and  it  will 
pay  you  to  give  a  little  meat  in  some  form  every  day,  from 
now  on.  Don't  put  more  than  sixty  to  eighty  in  a  flock,  the 
smaller  number  is  better,  and  keep  them  in  separate  runs ;  and 
as  they  increase  in  size  give  them  more  room,  both  in  brooder 
and  yard.  Green  cut  bone  is  good  up  to  a  certain  point,  but 
beyond  that  point  you  are  taxing  the  system  by  forcing  it  to 
throw  off  a  lot  of  mineral  that  cannot  be  utilized,  and  there 
is  not  usually  enough  meat  with  it  to  give  them  what  they 
require  to  meet  their  rapidly  growing  need  for  feather  and 
muscle  forming  foods. 

A  good  mixed  chick  food  can  be  had  at  most  places  where 
poultry  supplies  are  handled,  and  this  is  properly  proportioned 
and  furnishes  nearly  all  the  kinds  of  food  needed  for  rapid 
growth,  except  green  stuff  and  wheat,  and  it  can  be  used  all 
the  time  until  your  chicks  can  eat  whole  grain.  If  you  do  not 
use  mixed  chick  food  which  has  charcoal  in  it,  then  keep 
powdered  charcoal  on  hand  and  put  some  in  a  warm  mash  of 
bran  and  cornmeal  at  the  first  sign  of  bowel  trouble.  Raw, 
wet  cornmeal  has  been  found  to  be  an  almost  impossible  food 


46 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 


in  this  part  of  the  world,  as  many  a  person  can  testify  who  al- 
ways used  it  in  the  East.  An  excellent  plan  is  to  make  your 
bran,  charcoal  and  cornmeal  or  feed  meal  (a  coarser  ground 
meal)  into  a  johnny-cake  with  sour  milk  and  soda,  as  if  for  the 
table;  when  crumbled  it  is  one  of  the  best  foods  for  little 
chicks.  Feed  dry  foods  and  let  them  drink  pure  water,  but 
don't  try  to  mix  it;  it  will  bring  on  bowel  trouble  almost  in- 
variably. When  you  find  there  is  a  looseness  of  the  bowels 
see  if  they  are  warm  enough  in  the  brooder,  for  if  the  chicks 
catch  cold  that  is  one  of  the  first  symptoms  you  will  notice,  and 
you  must  immediately  look  for  the  cause,  as  well  as  to  battle 
with  the  effect. 


THE   IvEADING   VARIETIES   OF   FANCY   STOCKS.  47 


CHAPTER  IX. 
THE  LEADING  VARIETIES  OF  FANCY  STOCKS. 

We  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  any  of  the  breds  as  re- 
gards fine  points  and  judging,  but  simply  the  chief  character- 
istics of  some  of  the  principal  varieties.     The  Mediterraneans 
include  the  fowls  that  are  the  product  of  Italy,  Spain  and  the 
islands  between  (all  the  stock  is  supposed  to  be  descended  from 
the    jungle  fowl   of    India,  but  "Quien    Sabe"),  such    as    the 
Leghorns,  the  Minorcas,  black  and  white,  single  and  rose  comb ; 
the  Blue  Andalusian  and  White-faced  Black   Spanish.     The 
French  fowls  are  somewhat  similar  in  size  and  nervousness, 
but  are  much  talked  of  as  having  choice  flesh.     The  most 
prominent  of  these  are  the  Houdans,  Le  Fleche,  Creve  Ceurs, 
and  now  the  Favourelles  are  coming  into  prominence.     Then 
there  are  the  Hamburgs,  the  Polish,  and  some  freaks  from  Japan 
and  China.    The  Asiatics  including  the  Cochin  of  the  different 
kinds,  the  Light  and  Dark  Brahmas,  Langshan  and  Javas,  be- 
side the  Indian  and  Pit  Games,  fancy  Bantams,  etc.    The  Orp- 
ingtons,  Scotch  Greys,  Red  Caps  and  some  other  made  up 
varieties  are  rather  "betwixt  and  between,"  and  last,  but  not 
by  any  means  least,  comes  the  American  class  with  the  Barred, 
White  and  Buff  Plymouth  Rocks,  the  different  members  of 
the  Wyandotte  family  and  the  Rhode  Island  Reds.     Careful 
and  persistent  "line  breeding"  for  a  single  purpose  will  almost 
make  anything  you  want,  from  any  variety,  as,  for  instance,  the 
Light  Brahma  has  been  made  to  lay  over  two  hundred  eggs  in 
a  year,  and  a  California  man  a  few  years  ago  had  a  White 


48 


POULTRY  WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 


Leghorn  cock  that  weighed  eleven  pounds.     Rather  reversing 
the  characteristics,  isn't  it? 

The  Hamburgs  are  the  smallest  with  the  exception  of  the 
Bantam,  which,  by  the  way,  is  a  good  money-maker  when  han- 
dled for  the  fancy,  and  there  are  two  men  in  Southern  Cali- 
fornia who  raise  large  numbers  of  them  each  year.  The  Sil- 
ver Spangled  and  Gold  Spangled  Hamburgs  are  very  handsome 
birds,  good  foragers,  hardy  and  lay  a  great  many  (though 
small)  white  eggs  ;  the  flesh  is  just  fair.  The  Leghorns  perhaps 
come  next  in  size,  though  in  actual  farm  life  there  is  not  much 
difference  between  them  and  the  French,  Spanish  and  Polish 
birds. 

The  Leghorn  is  small,  plump,  hardy  and  a  good  hunter,  a 
non-sitter,  as  are  all  the  Mediterraneans,  unless  old  or  fat,  and 
lays  a  good-sized  egg. 

The  Black  Spanish,  in  our  experience,  lays  a  larger  egg 
than  the  Leghorn,  but  the  bird  is  not  quite  so  hardy,  and  the 
black  leg  and  white  flesh  is  not  in  their  favor  here;  while  in 
England  the  white-fleshed  bird  has  the  preference  over  the  yel- 
low-skinned one  which  our  cousins  take  exception  to  as  "look- 
ing too  fat  and  oily." 

The  Andalusian  is  not  as  widely  known  as  the  others  of  its 
class,  but  we  believe  it  to  be  a  very  good  bird  with  many  things 
in  its  favor,  and  though  it  is  hard  to  breed  true  to  color,  that 
adds  zest  to  the  game  for  the  fancier,  and  we  expect  to  hear 
much  from  this  bird. 

The  Minorca  is  the  largest  of  the  Mediterraneans ;  is  not 
quite  so  hardy  while  small,  but  lays  probably  the  largest  white 
egg  of  any  variety.  A  Black  Minorca  cock  went  to  Pitts- 
burg  parties  from  one  of  our  California  breeders  and  has  made 
a  record  there  for  size,  a  point  in  which  many  Eastern  birds 
lack,  for  he  weighed  eight  pounds  just  as  he  was  picked  up 
from  the  breeding  pen,  and  he  netted  his  owner  $35.00. 


THE   LEADING   VARIETIES   OF   FANCY  STOCKS.  49 

The  French  birds  are  not  as  large  as  the  Minorca  and 
are  not  noted  for  the  number  or  size  of  egg,  but  mostly  for  their 
fine  grained  flesh.  The  Orpington  and  Greys  are  nearly  equal 
to  our  Rocks  in  some  points,  being  a  little  smaller  with  white 
skin.  The  Rhode  Island  Red  is  a  bird  slightly  smaller  than  the 
Wyandotte  and  seems  to  be  a  very  active  and  yet  not  nervous 
bird,  hardy  and  vigorous,  a  good  layer  and  setter,  with  a  plump, 
well-rounded  body,  laying  a  fair-sized  egg.  The  bird  seems  to 
have  originated  from  a  mixture  of  several  breeds,  does  not 
as  yet  breed  very  true  and  has  not  been  admitted  to  the 
Standard. 

The  Wyandotte,  more  particularly  the  white,  is  crowding 
the  old  reliable  Barred  Rock  for  the  first  place  in  the  hearts 
of  our  Eastern  brothers,  and  has  many  claims  to  prominent 
notice.  The  hens  should  weigh  seven  pounds  and  the  cocks 
eight.  The  body  of  the  "Dotte"  is  plump  and  well  rourded, 
and  the  point  that  gives  them  prominence  in  the  East  is  the 
fact  that  as  broilers  they  look  plump  and  round  at  an  early 
age,  and  are  not  as  lank  and  leggy  as  the  Rocks. 

The  Wyandotte  has  been  well  developed  as  a  layer  and  In 
Massachusetts,  where  it  is  about  as  prominent  as  any  bird,  the 
laying  ability  is  hard  to  beat  and  the  fine  creamy-brown  eggs 
are  well  liked  in  that  market,  so  much  so,  in  fact,  that  the  white 
eggs  are  often  shipped  to  New  York,  where  the  white  egg  is 
preferred  and  brown-shelled  eggs  are  sent  from  there  to 
Boston. 

Any  one  engaging  in  the  egg  business  must  study  the  de- 
mands of  his  market  and  furnish  that  which  will  yield  him  the 
best  returns  in  dollars  and  cents.  The  Wyandotte  is  a  good 
hardy  bird,  a  good  winter  layer,  a  good  mother,  not  apt  to 
fly  over  a  reasonably  high  fence  and  only  second  to  the  Rocks 
as  an  all-round  general  utility  fowl  under  ordinary  conditions. 
The  Partridge  Wyandotte  is  the  latest  addition  to  the  Standard 


50 


POUI/TRY  WEST  OF  THE  ROCKIES. 


and  is  a  very  prettily  marked  bird,  with  the  regular  Wyandotte 
shape.  There  are,  besides,  the  White,  Buff,  and  Silver-Laced 
Dottes. 

The  Plymouth  Rocks,  barred,  white  and  buff,  are  so  well 
known  that  almost  every  one  knows  of  their  good  qualities, 
but  remember  when  you  see  a  pen  of  Barred  Rocks  that  "'all 
is  not  gold  that  glitters." 

There  are  many  people  who  get  some  eggs,  perhaps,  at  the 
grocery  or  of  some  one  who  sells  "Plymouth  Rock  eggs  from 
the  best  stock  in  the  city  or  state,"  according  to  the  amount  of 
gall  in  the  makeup  of  the  person  selling  "for  50  cents  per  set- 
ing,"  and  then  the  buyers  gets  chicks  of  several  colors,  but 
-every  speckled  one  is  a  Plymouth  Rock  sure,  and  every  white 
one  is  probably  a  Leghorn. 

Sometimes  a  cross  between  a  Barred  Rock  and  a  White  Leg- 
horn will  give  you  some  very  prettily  barred  birds,  but  they 
are  not  pure-blooded  Rocks  by  any  means,  and  the  same  is  true 
of  a  Rock  cross  with  any  other  variety.  The  White  Leghorn 
pure  blood  is  about  the  only  bird  that  will  excel  the  Barred 
Rock  in  marking  its  progeny. 

We  are  sometimes  asked  if  the  Mammoth  Barred  Plymouth 
Rock  is  not  a  different  variety  from  the  others,  as  it  is  so 
advertised.  This  is  only  a  dodge  to  pretend  to  have  something 
new,  and  the  difference  in  size  has  been  accomplished  by  care- 
ful breeding  and  selection  with  the  end  in  view  of  increasing 
the  size  of  the  birds.  The  Standard  calls  for  73^  Ibs.  for  the 
hen  and  9  Ibs.  for  the  cock,  and  if  this  can  be  increased  without 
sacrificing  laying  ability  or  activity  very  well,  but  an  extreme 
change  in  any  direction  must  be  made  carefully  that  there  be  no 
deterioration  in  some  other.  There  is  no  other  bird  so  thor- 
oughly distributed  over  the  United  States  as  this  same  Barred 
Rock  and  there  are  more  crossbred  birds  lurking  behind  the 
name  than  is  possible  with  any  other.  Men  in  the  poultry 


THE   TRADING   VARIETIES   OF   FANCY   STOCKS.  51 

markets  in  almost  any  of  our  western  cities  will  tell  you  that 
the  majority  of  people  who  buy  either  a  broiler  or  older  chicken 
will  ask  for  a  Plymouth  Rock,  and  those  who  want  a  few  hens 
or  some  eggs  for  raising  birds  for  their  own  table  will  get  the 
same,  if  they  can. 

The  White  Rock  is  likely  to  be  about  as  well  known  as  the 
Barred  in  time,  but  as  yet  there  is  not  the  call  for  them,  as  their 
good  points  are  not  well  known  and  they  have  not  been  bred 
as  long  as  the  others.  The  White  Rocks  are  very  fine  layers, 
and  just  the  same  as  to  size  as  the  others  of  the  family  and  have 
no  dark  pin  feathers.  The  plumage  must  be  clear  white,  which 
is  the  hardest  part  of  the  work  of  producing  first-class  birds. 
The  Buffs  are  hard  to  breed  because  of  the  tendency  of  all 
birds  to  show  dark  on  wing  and  tail  and  light  undercolor.  The 
Rocks  are  all  quiet  and  contented  birds,  tame  and  sociable, 
good  about  raising  chicks,  lay  a  good-sized  egg  and  do  not 
carry  a  surplus  of  feather  or  comb.  For  just  egg  production 
they  need  watching  in  order  to  check  the  desire  to  set.  If  not 
allowed  to  stay  on  the  nest  over  night,  they  can  be  broken  easily, 
but  if  the  fever  gets  a  good  hold  it  is  sometimes  hard  to  get 
them  to  quit.  The  impulse  to  hatch  is  a  physical  change  in  the 
hen  and  is  attended  by  an  activity  of  otherwise  nearly  dormant 
blood-vessels  in  the  lower  part  of  the  body  and  breast  and 
an  increase  of  temperature  of  the  whole  body.  In  order  to 
break  this  fever,  you  must  give  as  complete  a  change  of 
surroundings  as  possible,  either  by  putting  in  a  small  open 
coop  with  roost,  but  no  boxes,  and  one  preferably  with  a  young 
male  bird  in  it,  or  turn  out  on  a  grass  range  with  other  birds 
when  there  are  no  nests  or  dark  places  for  her  to  go  and  try 
to  hatch  china  eggs  or  door  knobs. 

The  Asiatics  are  all  a  more  or  less  clumsy  birds,  with 
feathers  on  leg  and  toe,  and  a  general  fluffiness  which  makes 
the  uninitiated  think  them  much  heavier  than  they  really  are. 


POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 

At  the  same  time  they  are  our  heaviest  birds  and  where  much 
care  has  been  given  to  breeding  for  egg,  the  Light  Brahma 
particularly,  has  proven  herself  to  be  a  great  performer.  They 
all  lay  a  very  large,  dark,  thick-shelled  egg  and  are  good  winter 
layers  and  the  greatest  setters  in  the  whole  list.  One  objection 
to  them  as  setters  is  their  weight  and  sluggishness  as  they  are 
apt  to  break  eggs  by  stepping  on  them,  and  when  they  step 
on  a  young  chick  it  takes  them  so  long  to  figure  out  which 
foot  the  little  fellow  is  under,  that  he  gives  up  and  dies  before 
she  moves. 

The  Light  Brahma  takes  first  place  for  size,  and  we  have 
never  gotten  over  our  preference  for  her,  as  she  was  one  of  the 
first  well  bred  birds  we  ever  owned,  and  the  clear  white  and 
black  plumage,  the  fine  shape  and  size  and  the  fine  fluffy  butter 
balls  of  chicks,  still  takes  us  back  to  the  time — well,  several 
years  ago — when  two  "barefoot  boys  with  cheeks  of  tan"  were 
the  proud  possessors  of  a  pen  of  very  fair  birds  of  this  variety 
on  the  old  farm  near  Madison,  Wis.  Good  old  days,  and  a 
glorious  mother  who  could  show  her  seven  boys  the  dignity 
of  labor  and  what  a  safeguard  it  is  to  keep  boys  out  of  mis- 
chief. She  is  still  living  and  in  California,  and  spends  part  of 
every  day  in  her  garden  working,  at  83  years  of  age,  "and 
her  children  rise  up  and  call  her  blessed." 

The  Light  Brahma  is  the  largest  of  our  hens  and  with  her 
full  feather  and  fluffiness  looks  her  weight  all  right,  which 
often  reaches  n  Ibs.  for  the  hen  and  12  to  14  for  the  cock, 
in  extreme  cases,  and  a  capon  of  this  variety  has  been  said  to. 
reach  22  Ibs. 

In  the  broiler  section  of  New  England  the  Light  Brahma 
is  often  crossed  with  the  White  Leghorn  for  the  first  lot  of 
broilers,  as  they  develop  rapidly,  make  a  fair  size  at  an  early 
age  and  stand  forcing  very  well. 

The  Cochins  are  a  little  lighter  than  the  Brahma;  in  fact. 


THE   SHADING   VARIETIES   OF   FANCY   STOCKS. 

the  dark  Brahma  is  not  as  heavy  as  his  light  brother  and  they 
make  a  very  handsome  appearance  with  their  full  feathering, 
low,  blocky  shape  and  massive  look.  They  can  be  made  to  lay 
well  in  winter  and  will  do  very  well  the  year  round  if  made 
to  scratch  and  not  allowed  to  get  too  fat. 

The  Lanshan  is  a  good  large  bird,  but  is  not  so  well  known 
as  the  others.  The  Cornish  Indian  Game  is  about  the  weight  of 
the  Rocks  and  is  a  good  layer,  but  is  most  noted  for  the 
flavor  of  its  flesh  and  the  amount  of  breast  meat  it  carries. 

We  dislike  the  bird  on  account  of  its  carriage.  The  droop 
of  its  tail  and  awkward  walk  make  its  apearance  anything  but 
beautiful. 


54 


POULTRY  WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 


CHAPTER  X. 

MONEY  IN  FANCY  STOCK. 

By  "fancy"  stock  we  do  not  mean  some  breed  that  is  kept  for 
its  beauty,  or  as  pets  or  some  freak,  but  the  very  best  of  any 
variety  that  you  can  afford  to  buy,  and  utility  must  be  one 
of  the  points  considered. 

We  firmly  believe  that  the  time  will  come  when  beside  the 
regular  score  card  used  now  with  a  certain  number  of  points 
for  each  part,  will  be  so  amended  for  birds  a  year  old  and  over, 
that  the  egg  record  of  each  hen  will  have  to  do  with  her  score 
and  also  the  stock  raised  from  her  eggs  will  help  to  determine 
her  standing,  as  will  the  grade  of  young  stock  sired  by  a  male 
bird  and  shown  at  the  same  time  with  him,  help  to  make  up  his 
total  score. 

Every  one  knows  that  some  birds  may  score  well  and  not 
produce  many  eggs  or  good  young  stock,  and  other  less  showy 
birds  will  be  the  ones  that  bring  in  the  income. 

When  number,  weight  and  vitality  of  egg,  and  size,  vigor  and 
marking  of  young  stock,  together  with  a  good  score  can?  of 
points  is  the  rule  at  every  show,  we  will  have  advanced  far 
beyond  where  we  are  now,  with  our  comparison  shows,  which 
simply  demonstrate  the  fact  that  my  bird  is  a  little  better  than 
my  neighbor's  who  had  birds  at  the  same  show  as  myself,  but 
unless  I  am  a  good  judge  I  do  not  know  how  much  my  bird 
is  worth,  nor  if  he  is  as  good  as  some  other  man's  bird,  who  did 
not  show  his  stock. 

Some  contend  that  since  a  score  card  show  requires  more 


MONKY  IN   FANCY  STOCK.  55 

judges  to  do  the  work  and  they  must  be  paid  for  their  time, 
that  a  score  card  show  is  a  luxury  that  few  can  afford.  This  is 
true  to  a  certain  extent  and  yet  the  exhibits  and  consequent 
income  would  be  better,  for  the  man  who  is  making  a  business 
of  poultry  raising  cannot  afford  to  show  his  birds  simply  for 
the  advertising  he  gets  in  that  way,  but  will  patronize  a  score 
card  show  because  he  gets  some  return  for  his  money,  and,  as 
before  stated,  the  performance  and  product  of  the  birds  shown 
should  cut  some  figure  at  every  show,  as  they  deserve  to  do. 

In  buying  stock  or  eggs  of  any  breed  you  should  deal  with 
a  man  who  has  a  record  for  fair  dealing  and  who  is  a  good 
judge  of  the  kind  of  fowl  you  wish  to  buy. 

The  man  who  has  a  good  number  of  varieties  is  not  as  good 
a  judge  of  some  as  of  others  and  for  this  reason  we  would  deal 
with  a  man  who  has  made  a  good  record  with  the  variety 
we  wished  to  buy. 

It  is  not  a  good  plan  in  ordering  birds  to  send  two  or  three 
dollars  for  each  bird  you  wish  sent  and  then  describe  the  kind 
of  birds  you  want,  which  according  to  your  requirements  would 
be  94  or  96-point  birds,  and  expect  a  man  to  send  you  birds  that 
are  worth  anywhere  from  $15  to  $50.  Many  people  do  this  and 
then  brand  the  breeder  as  dishonest  and  decry  his  birds  because 
he  could  not  do  what  no  other  business  man  would  do.  Sup- 
pose a  lady  should  send  $10  to  a  good  dry  goods  house  and 
ask  them  to  send  15  yards  of  silk,  and  then  give  number  of 
sample  and  description  of  goods  which  retails  at  $3.00  per 
yard ;  would  she  get  it  ?  Then  if  she  does  not  get  it,  but  gets 
the  number  of  yards  she  asks  for  of  the  grade  of  goods  that 
amounts  to  the  $10.00,  does  this  prove  that  the  dealer  is  a  rascal, 
or  is  no  judge  of  goods,  or  has  no  first-class  goods? 

If  you  want  first-class  birds,  write  to  the  man  who  has  a 
record  in  the  show  room  and  get  the  score  card  from  a  good 
judge;  find  out  the  price  and  pay  it,  or  else  send  the  amount  of 


56 


POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE    ROCKIES. 


money  you  wish  to  invest  in  a  certain  number  of  birds  and  ask 
the  honest  breeder  to  give  you  the  very  best  birds  he  can,  for 
that  much  money,  and  he  will  try  harder  to  satisfy  you  than  he 
will  if  you  undertake  to  tell  him  just  what  kind  of  a  bird  he 
must  send  you. 

A  man  who  makes  a  living  from  fancy  poultry  cannot  afford 
to  be  dishonest  and  again  perhaps  the  one  receiving  the  birds 
is  not  as  good  a  judge  of  the  value  of  them  as  the  shipper. 

Those  who  complain  about  stock  bought,  will  often  enter  dis- 
qualified birds  at  a  show,  and  then  register  a  good  vigorous 
roar  because  the  judge  didn't  know  anything  about  his  busi- 
ness. If  we  were  to  choose  between  judging  at  a  poultry  show 
and  umpiring  a  ball  game,  we  would  choose  the  latter,  for  free- 
dom from  trouble. 

Not  the  least  advantage  you  have  in  getting  birds  from  a 
man  with  a  national  reputation  is  that  you  can  advertise  your 
stock  as  coming  direct  from  his  yard,  and  get  more  business 
on  his  reputation  then  you  possibly  could  on  your  own,  and  reap 
a  profit  from  the  hard  work  he  has  put  in  for  many  years 

Remember  right  here  that  it  is  not  always  the  man  \vho 
tells  the  largest  story  that  has  the  best  birds,  but  the  man 
who  has  won  the  prizes  and  keeps  up  the  quality  of  his  stock ; 
and  often  he  doesn't  say  much  about  it  himself,  but  the  records 
of  the  shows  where  he  has  exhibited  speak  for  him. 

Buy  a  pen  of  not  less  than  three  hens  and  you  will  probably 
have  as  large  a  flock  of  good  birds  at  the  end  of  a  year  as  you 
would  if  you  had  bought  four  hundred  eggs,  or  you  can  sell 
eggs  enough  at  $2.00  per  setting  to  pay  for  the  feed  the  birds 
consume  while  you  are  getting  your  flock  started. 

If  you  have  really  good  birds  of  any  well  known  variety, 
you  will  be  able  to  sell  eggs  for  hatching  to  some  of  your  neigh- 
bors who  know  a  good  thing  when  they  see  it,  and  there  never 
has  been  such  a  demand  for  the  "best"  as  at  present,  and  the 


MONEY   IN    FANCY   STOCK. 

demand  is  bound  to  increase  faster  than  the  supply,  for  all  who 
have  thought  on  the  subject  realize  that  good  stock  pays  better 
than  poor,  and  so  buy  a  few  good  birds  or  eggs  each  year,  and 
by  "crossing"  and  letting  them  run  at  large  must  get  more 
each  year.  And  again,  where  one  man  proves  that  there  is 
money  to  be  made  by  selling  eggs  for  setting,  some  of  his 
neighbors  will  want  to  try  it. 

A  poultryman  of  our  acquaintance  who  pays  for  good  ad- 
vertisements in  poultry  journals  and  who  has  made  a  study 
of  just  one  breed  of  chickens  for  several  years,  has  made  a 
flock  of  80  birds  bring  him  a  net  income  of  nearly  $7.00  per  hen 
in  the  year  1901.  A  person  who  does  not  advertise  freely  may 
have  very  good  stock  and  not  find  a  good  market  for  stock  or 
eggs. 

Selling  eggs  at  a  low  price  will  not  increase  the  sales  satis- 
factorily, for  though  some  will  complain  if  you  charge  $1.50  or 
$2.00  for  a  setting  of  eggs  and  refuse  to  buy,  there  are  more  of 
the  kind  of  people  who  will  not  buy,  if  you  offer  to  sell  at  50 
or  75  cents,  because  they  are  pretty  sure  that  if  you  had  the 
kind  of  stock  they  wish  to  get  eggs  from,  that  you  would  not 
sell  at  that  price,  and  will  buy  from  some  one  who  can  prove 
that  his  stock  is  good  and  worth  the  price  asked. 

For  this  reason,  get  good  stock  from  a  well  known  breeder 
and  trade  on  his  reputation  until  you  get  a  good  one  of  your 
own,  and  make  your  reputation  good  or  go  out  of  the  busi- 
ness, for  the  tricky  man  will  not  last  long  in  this  business,  and 
is  not  wanted  in  it  unless  he  can  leave  his  tricks  out.  Honest, 
fair  dealing  is  the  only  kind  that  will  pay  for  a  great  length 
of  time. 

As  we  have  said  before,  there  is  great  satisfaction  in  having 
first-class  aristocratic  looking  poultry  in  your  yards  and  know- 
ing that  is  better  than  your  neighbor's  stock,  and  then  if  you 
have  enough  of  it,  the  income  is  not  to  be  despised. 


POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 


CHAPTER  XL 
DISEASES. 

The  subject  of  diseases  is  one  that,  under  the  hand  of  an 
expert  like  Dr.  Salmon,  is  capable  of  much  expansion,  but  we 
propose  to  give  a  simple  method  of  dealing  with  some  of  the 
more  common  ailments,  believing  that  there  is  no  use  in  telling 
a  treatment  for  a  disease  that  cannot  be  diagnosed  until  the 
fowl  is  dead  and  dissected,  or  is  so  obscure  that  it  can  only  be 
guessed  at. 

Whatever  the  trouble  may  be  that  shows  itself  in  your  flock, 
it  is  most  likely  caused  by  conditions  of  house  or  care,  and  not 
often  communicated  by  birds  from  some  one  else's  yard.  No 
one  remedy  will  cure  all  diseases,  and  some  cases  will  be  lost  in 
spite  of  all  you  can  do.  Some  of  our  most  successful  poultry- 
men  say  there  is  no  need  of  having  sick  chickens.  This  is 
short,  and  to  the  point,  but  when  they  say  that  sickness  can  be 
prevented  by  proper  housing  and  feding,  etc.,  then  the  whole 
question  goes  back  to  the  chapter  on  care  of  chickens  on  a  small 
scale,  and  advice  about  keeping  the  lice  out  and  the  houses 
clean. 

Remember  that  a  hen  needs  about  the  same  sized  dose  of 
medicine  as  a  man,  and  if  you  use  quinine,  or  aconite  or  cam- 
phor or  turpentine  for  your  own  colds,  you  may  use  the  same 
on  a  hen  and  expect  the  same  results.  A  hen  with  a  cold  should 
be  placed  by  herself  and  have  a  good  warm  roosting  coop, 
where  she  can  sleep  warm,  and  you  can  give  her  choice  food 
and  some  good  invigorating  tonic  to  help  her  to  overcome  her 


DISEASES. 

cold.  It  is  a  good  plan  to  put  all  medicine  in  the  soft  food,  for 
then  it  will  be  taken,  and  the  water  will  be  pure  instead  of 
being  made  distasteful  to  the  hen  when  she  is  perhaps  feverish 
and  needs  to  drink. 

If  a  cold  attacks  the  head  and  eyes,  use  a  good  liquid  roup 
cure,  to  dip  or  bathe  the  head,  and  see  that  the  nostrils  are  kept 
open,  by  syringing  or  greasing,  for  when  a  hen  must  breathe 
through  her  mouth  she  is  in  a  dangerous  condition.  If  the 
cold  affects  the  throat,  the  remedies  must  be  strong  and  applied 
locally  with  a  feather  or  camel's  hair  brush,  while  using  a 
good  remedy  in  the  food  to  combat  the  trouble  through  the 
system,  and  circulation. 

Don't  give  too  much  cayenne  pepper,  as  it  is  very  strong, 
and  one  man  has  proven  to  his  own  satisfaction  that  it  causes 
enlargement  of  the  liver,  and  he  advises  the  use  of  ginger,  as 
it  has  the  warming  effect  of  pepper,  besides  having  other  good 
properties  and  is  not  dangerous  to  use,  from  any  effect  on  the 
liver,  as  pepper  is. 

Judgment  and  care  must  be  used  when  any  trouble  breaks 
out  in  a  flock,  that  you  may  apply  the  right  remedy.  An  entire 
change  of  conditions  is  the  first  thing,  and  change  of  food. 
Chicken  pox  is  a  very  troublesome  thing,  but  not  usually  fatal, 
except  among  the  young  chicks.  It  appears  in  round  sores 
and  warty  spots  on  comb  and  head.  Use  some  good  remedy 
to  clear  the  system  and  use  camphorated  lard  or  carbolic  salve, 
or  a  mixture  of  olive  oil  and  turpentine,  on  the  sores,  or  use 
a  liquid  roup  cure. 

For  any  liver  trouble,  often  indicated  by  dark  comb,  loss  of 
appetite  and  disordered  stomach,  use  a  good  physic,  such  as 
castor  oil  or  a  few  pieces  of  fat  salt  pork,  if  the  bird  will  eat 
it,  and  give  an  entire  change  of  feed,  with  plenty  of  grit  and 
charcoal,  and  clean  water.  This  trouble  is  hard  to  deal  with, 
because  you  will  often  fail  to  notice  the  symptoms  till  the  dis- 


60  POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 

ease  gets  a  strong  grip  on  the  bird  and  it  is  hard  to  check  it. 

This  trouble,  with  apoplexy  and  some  other  more  obscure 
diseases,  is  caused  very  often  by  over-feeding,  and  a  lack  of 
grit.  Charcoal  is  the  best  preventive  of  all  such  diseases,  and 
sharp  grit,  plenty  of  pure  water  and  coarse  food,  such  as  rolled 
barley  and  plenty  of  alfalfa,  must  be  used,  together  with  en- 
forced exercise. 

One  party  told  us  that  they  made  it  a  practice  to  give  their 
birds  a  strong  physic,  once  a  month,  giving  Glauber  salts,  in 
the  mash  for  three  mornings,  and  then  feed  as  usual  for  the 
rest  of  the  month. 

The  old  saying  that  "an  ounce  of  prevention  is  worth  a  pound 
of  cure"  was  never  more  true  than  it  is  of  the  care  of  poultry 
in  our  glorious  climate,  and  the  man  who  "never  gives  his 
hens  any  medicine  at  all,"  "and  if  one  gets  sick  just  chops  its 
head  off,"  is  not  cut  out  for  a  really  up-to-date  successful  poul- 
tryman.  He  ought  to  have  an  orchard,  so  he  could  put  his 
decapitated  birds  where  they  would  do  the  most  good.  He 
needs  an  income  from  some  source. 

Gapes  is  shown  by  an  opened  mouth  with  stretched  neck 
and  a  sort  of  cough,  and  the  fowl  will  often  shake  its  head 
violently,  while  holding  the  mouth  open.  This  is  an  effort  to 
dislodge  a  parasitic  worm  that  adheres  to  the  sides  of  the  wind- 
pipe. A  good  remedy  is  turpentine,  or  liquid  roup  cure,  ap- 
plied with  a  feather.  Kerosene  will  do  it,  but  we  seldom  use 
it.  One  poultryman  tells  me  that  kerosene  is  the  only  thing 
that  he  ever  gave  his  hens,  that  tainted  the  eggs.  He  now 
uses  turpentine  for  colds,  and  for  intestinal  worms,  which  are 
sometimes  troublesome,  and  on  any  sign  of  leg  weakness,  he 
gives  a  dose  of  it,  for  its  action  on  the  kidneys,  which  may  be 
the  cause  of  leg  weakness  or  paralysis  or  other  obscure  troubles. 

One  disease  mentioned  by  a  very  learned  writer,  is  called 
"Going  Light."  This  reminds  us  of  the  old-time  jingle  about 


DISEASES.  61 

something  that  "died  for  the  want  of  breath,"  or  the  human 
disease  so  often  blamed  for  death,  called  "heart  failure." 

Of  course,  if  a  hen  "goes  light"  long  enough  and  keeps  on 
subtracting  she  will  fade  away  after  awhile,  but  the  disease 
that  makes  her  "go  light"  is  what  kills  her. 

Now,  this  is  our  opinion,  but  we  may  be  wrong  about  it. 

Lice  is  the  most  frequent  cause  of  hens  "going  light"  of  any- 
thing we  know  of,  and  they  also  make  the  egg  basket  go  very 
"light,"  and  so  perforce  must  the  pocketbook. 

Here  is  where  the  poultryman  must  use  the  utmost  vigilance, 
for  there  is  no  such  thing  as  righting  the  lice  to  a  finish,  for  the 
minute  you  think  you  have  killed  every  one  on  the  place,  and 
lay  back  on  their  oars,  just  that  minute  they  will  begin  to  get 
in  their  work,  and  when  you  least  expect  it,  the  production  of 
eggs  will  begin  to  fall  off,  sickness  will  creep  in,  and  the  hen 
weakened  by  lice  has  a  slim  chance  against  any  kind  of  dis- 
ease. 

Crop-bound  is  one  of  the  troubles  you  are  liable  to  "meet 
up  with." 

This  may  be  caused  by  the  bird  having  swallowed  a  piece 
of  string,  cloth,  or  paper,  or  some  obstruction  that  has  closed 
the  passage  from  the  crop  to  the  gizzard,  or  it  may  be  an  in- 
flammation of  the  crop,  which  destroys  its  natural  gastric  juice 
and  causes  a  dryness  there,  and  so  prevents  the  passage  of 
food  into  the  gizzard. 

The  first  thing  to  do  is  to  pour  a  spoonful  of  olive  or  sweet 
oil  down  the  bird's  throat,  and  then  pinch  and  knead  the  crop, 
to  loosen  the  contents  and  get  the  oil  through  it,  and  then  hold 
the  bird  up  by  the  legs  and  try  to  work  some  of  the  matter  out 
through  the  mouth,  and  force  everything  away  from  the  lower 
part  of  the  crop. 

If  the  obstruction  cannot  be  removed  this  way,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  make  an  incision  through  the  skin  of  the  neck  and 


62  POUT/TRY   WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 

the  top  of  the  crop,  and  with  a  bent  wire  remove  the  contents, 
and  the  cuts  will  soon  heal;  but  don't  allow  the  bird  to  eat 
much  at  a  time,  but  feed  often  till  well. 

For  sour  crop,  usually  shown  by  fullness  and  yet  soft,  caused 
often  by  lack  of  grit  and  charcoal,  a  dose  of  common  soda  as 
large  as  a  bean,  dissolved  in  part  of  a  spoonful  of  water  will 
usually  reduce  the  fermentation  and  stop  the  trouble,  but  re- 
member that  it  is  your  part  to  remove  the  cause.  This  dose 
may  be  given  twice  or  three  times  in  a  day,  if  necessary,  to  re- 
lieve the  bird. 

Scaly  leg  is  caused  by  a  small  parasite  which  burrows  under 
the  scales  on  a  fowl's  leg,  and  causes  them  to  raise  and  be- 
come partly  deadened,  and  the  bird  will  sometimes  become 
lame,  and  does  not  seem  thrifty.  It  can  be  cured  by  using  a 
good  poultry  or  sheep  dip,  diluted  in  water  and  thoroughly 
washing  the  legs,  and  then  anoint  with  oil  or  vaseline,  or  you 
may  mix  turpentine  and  olive  oil,  equal  parts,  and  bathe  the 
legs  with  that  every  two  or  three  days  till  cured.  Some  use 
kerosene,  but  that  is  pretty  harsh,  and  will  sometimes  injure 
the  leg,  and  you  will  be  "out"  the  price  of  a  hen. 

Pip  is  not  a  disease  of  the  tongue,  but  is  a  hardening  of 
the  tongue,  caused  by  the  breathing  through  the  mouth  when 
the  nostrils  are  closed.  Cure  the  cold  and  grease  the  fowl's 
beak  and  nose. 


A  TRUTHFUL   WOMAN.  63 


A  TRUTHFUL  WOMAN  IN  THE  POULTRY  BUSINESS  IN 
SOUTHERN   CALIFORNIA. 

The  above  title  may  seem  presumptuous,  in  view  of  the  fact 
that  poultrymen  are  not  considered  strictly  truthful  by  many 
people,  and  "man"  generally  embraces  "woman."  But  in  the 
face  of  this  fact  I  shall  try  to  give  a  truthful  and  lucid  account 
of  some  of  the  failures  and  successes  of  one  woman  in  South- 
ern California  with  the  end  in  view  of  showing  what  can  be 
done  by  a  woman  in  this  line. 

When  I  came  here  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  climate  and  condi- 
tions in  Southern  California  were  well  adapted  to  the  success- 
ful rearing  of  poultry  by  women,  and  after  several  years'  ex- 
perience I  can  see  no  good  reason  for  changing  my  mind. 

Here  we  have  neither  the  extreme  heat  nor  cold  of  the  East 
and  Middle  West,  and,  save  for  comparatively  few  days  in  the 
winter,  none  of  the  inclement  weather  of  most  other  sections 
of  the  country. 

The  quickest  and  surest  returns,  with  the  least  outlay  at  the 
start,  and  the  least  heavy  labor,  come  from  hatching  in  its  va- 
rious phases,  and  from  broiler-raising. 

These  branches  can  be  carried  on  successfully,  on  a  large 
enough  scale  to  insure  a  good  income ;  on  a  small  plan,  if  neces- 
sary. Even  on  a  large  place  it  is  better  to  have  houses,  etc., 
concentrated,  in  order  to  accomplish  the  largest  results  with  the 
fewest  possible  steps. 

The  chief  requirements  of  success  lie  in  the  woman  her- 
self. She  must  be  fond  of  an  out-of-door  life,  and  like  the 


64 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 


poultry  well  enough  to  spend  all  the  waking  hours  of  many  of 
her  days  with  them,  and  still  "be  not  weary  in  well  doing."  She 
must  have  patience,  even  as  Job,  for  the  business  is  made  up  of 
little  things  and  is  easily  ruined  by  little  things;  therefore  the 
closest  attention  to  details  must  be  given.  For  eternal  vigilance 
is  the  price  of  success. 

Do  not  start  in  unless  you  mean  to  stay  by  it,  and  having 
started,  stick  to  it,  "for  better,  for  worse" — and  it  will  be  "for 
better." 

The  first  expense  is  good  incubators.  Any  of  the  standard 
makes  will  do  good  work  if  properly  managed,  and  if  in  good 
condition  (working  order)  when  received.  Follow  directions 
carefully  and  use  common  sense.  No  incubator  company  can 
send  out  infallible  instructions  for  all  places  and  to  be  used 
under  all  conditions,  and  no  machine  can  think,  though  some 
of  them  would  seem  to  come  nearer  to  it  than  some  people  do. 

Study  your  machine  carefully.  Nobody's  success  or  fail- 
ure can  do  more  than  serve  as  an  encouragement  or  a  warning. 
You  must  "work  out  your  own  salvation,"  not  in  "  fear  and 
trembling,"  but  with  good  common  sense. 

I  have  found  in  hatching  some  16,000  chickens  that  the  ma- 
chine best  suited  to  my  purposes  is  one  holding  from  200  to 
300  eggs.  These  will  give  you  with  fair  success  an  average  for 
the  season  of  150  to  200  chicks  at  a  hatch,  which  number  I  like 
best  to  run  through  the  brooder  in  one  batch.  Put  about  50 
chicks  in  a  colony,  give  plenty  of  good  sweet  food  and  fresh 
water,  green  food,  preferably  lettuce  thrown  in  the  runs  whole ; 
observe  absolute  cleanliness,  not  what  most  people  call  clean- 
liness for  chickens,  but  cleanliness,  remembering  they  are  for 
food ;  keep  brooders  the  right  temperature ;  and  you  will  bring 
out  as  fine  a  lot  at  the  time  of  removal  from  the  brooder  as  any 
one  could  wish  to  see. 

One  smaller  machine  of  100  to  150  egg  capacity  will  be  found 


A   TRUTHFUL   WOMAN. 

useful  for  small  lots  of  eggs,  and  to  be  used  some  times  as  a 
supernumerary  to  the  larger  machines. 

Do  not  buy  second  hand  machines  unless  you  know  enough 
about  it  to  know  what  you  are  getting  (and  most  people  don't 
when  they  start  in),  or  unless  you  are  sure  of  the  parties  you 
buy  from. 

The  best  place  to  run  an  incubator  is  in  a  cellar — one  that 
can  be  properly  ventilated  and  still  free  from  draughts.  Fail- 
ing this,  a  good  large  "dug-out"  is  an  excellent  place,  always 
provided  there  is  plenty  of  ventilation.  Failing  both  these,  a 
north  room  on  the  ground  floor  is  best;  but  there  is  so  much 
vibration  in  most  California  houses  that  it  never  seemed  to 
me  quite  the  right  place  to  achieve  successful  hatches;  above 
all,  be  sure  of  the  ventilation — the  eggs  must  have  fresh  air; 
any  odor  in  the  room  is  most  objectionable  and  must  be  avoided. 

Having  placed  your  machines  we  next  consider  the  eggs.  If 
you  can  raise  your  own  it  is  more  satisfactory,  but  as  this  re- 
quires a  large  plant  and  more  labor  than  one  woman  can  carry 
on  alone,  it  is  better  to  buy  at  the  start  at  any  rate.  If  one  could 
get  "dependable"  help  it  would  do,  but  my  experience  has  led 
me  to  regard  this  in  the  light  of  "angels'  visits." 

Eggs  from  good  vigorous  stock  (not  fancy,  but  not 
"scrubs")  can  be  bought  at  a  price  that  will  pay,  by  making 
an  agreement  to  take  a  certain  number  regularly,  and  at  a 
uniform  price  for  the  year.  This  price  may  seem  a  little  high 
when  eggs  are  cheap  and  plenty,  but  on  the  average  is  an  ad- 
vantage both  to  the  producer  and  yourself.  In  this  way  you 
are  assured  of  your  supply  in  the  season  when  you  need  them 
most,  in  fact,  when  you  must  have  them  to  get  your  stock  ready 
at  the  time  of  highest  prices. 

There  is  always  some  income  from  the  young  stock  as  there 
is  a  good  demand  for  little  chicks  from  one  day  to  ten  weeks 
old,  from  good  vigorous  stock. 


66 


POULTRY   WEST    OF   THE    ROCKIES. 


Begin  hatching  not  later  than  September,  as  this  brings  on 
broilers  just  at  the  time  when  the  price  is  good,  and  it  stead- 
ily gets  better — the  best  prices  coming  in  March,  April  and 
May.  So  it  behooves  us  to  run  to  the  fullest  capacity  in  order 
to  have  all  we  can  to  market  during  these  months.  The  first  of 
June  the  price  declines  rapidly,  as  the  farmers  begin  to  bring 
in  surplus  stock,  and  the  tourists  are  about  gone.  Hold  what 
you  have  on  hand  at  this  time  and  get  them  ready  for  young 
roasters  in  the  fall. 

Remember  you  want  what  other  people  have  not;  study  this 
and  make  your  harvest  by  having  your  stock  ready  at  the  right 
time. 

The  machines  ready,  we  must  look  to  the  brooders  and  pre- 
pare for  the  coming  family.  The  house  must  be  light,  tight  and 
warm,  but  well  ventilated.  The  little  fellows  are  a  good  deal 
like  children  in  many  ways,  and  require  much  attention. 

The  house  to  be  satisfactory  need  not  necessarily  be  expen- 
sive— rough  lumber  well  battened  is  as  serviceable  as  a  finer 
house;  but  in  my  opinion  the  house  is  absolutely  necessary. 
The  out-of-doors  brooders  are  used  by  many,  and  with  suc- 
cess, but  it  is  much  more  work,  and  I  believe  the  extra  time 
and  strength  required  to  obtain  good  results  would  be  better 
employed  in  some  other  way. 

A  house  50  to  60  feet  long  will  accommodate  from  800  to 
1 200  chicks  of  ages  from  one  day  to  six  or  eight  weeks  old,  and 
is  as  much  as  one  woman  should  attempt,  with  the  incubating 
and  other  necessary  work  on  a  plant  of  this  kind.  Even  then 
there  will  be  little  time  for  household  duties,  but  it  is  better 
to  hire  help  for  the  house  than  for  the  poultry  work,  for  the 
poultry  must  not  be  neglected  even  for  an  hour. 

My  house  was  eight  feet  wide.  This  allows  for  a  good  inside 
run.  The  outside  runs  may  be  as  long  as  practicable.  Mine 
were  ten  feet  in  length — 3^  feet  high  of  one-inch  mesh  wire. 


A  TRUTHFUL  WOMAN.  67 

These  dimensions  allow  of  all  necessary  exercise,  and  should 
have  some  arrangement  for  shade,  if  only  canvas. 

Inside  the  house  there  should  be  a  space  at  one  end  for 
feed  bins,  shelves  for  scales  and  extra  dishes,  etc.,  used  in  the 
house,  and  also  for  a  sink  where  dishes  can  be  washed;  this 
saves  many  steps. 

The  chicks  stay  here  from  four  to  eight  weeks,  when  some 
arrangement  must  be  made  for  them  out  of  doors. 

I  have  found  dry  goods  cases  as  good,  and  cheaper  than 
anything  else.  Get  the  largest  you  can,  turn  on  side,  put  in 
movable  roosts,  have  the  front  on  hinges  at  top,  so  it  can  serve 
as  an  awning  during  the  day,  put  on  a  slant  roof  of  shakes  to 
shed  rain,  bore  holes  in  sides  near  the  top  for  ventilation,  and 
you  have  a  good  substantial  house  at  small  cost,  which  will  ac- 
commodate from  fifty  to  seventy-five  chicks  just  out  of  the 
brooder.  These  you  will  gradually  sort  over  as  the  cockerels 
develop  and  as  you  sell  from  the  pens,  till  you  have  from 
twenty-five  to  forty  left  at  ten  or  twelve  weeks  of  age,  when 
most  of  them  go  to  market ;  the  best  ones  will  bring  from  fifty 
cents  to  one  dollar  per  dozen  more  as  breeding  stock  than  the 
table  fowls  do. 

The  yards  to  go  with  these  houses  were  15x30  feet  with  .a 
five- foot  fence  made  of  inch-mesh  wire  for  two  feet  from  the 
ground,  the  remaining  three  feet  being  two-inch  mesh.  Get  the 
best  wire — it  pays. 

Do  not  buy  eggs  from  "scrub"  stock,  nor  keep  it  yourself. 
You  can  never  tell  what  the  chicks  will  make,  even  for  market. 
Whereas  you  can  estimate  pretty  correctly  where  you  will 
come  out  with  any  "straight"  vigorous  stock.  It  is  better 
to  select  one  breed  and  stay  by  it,  if  possible ;  but  as  you  must 
have  broilers  when  the  price  is  highest,  you  may  have  to  use 
more  than  one  kind  of  eggs.  If  you  do  this,  send  only  one 
breed  to  market  in  the  same  coop,  and  sort  the  birds  so  that 


68  POULTRY    WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 

all  in  the  same  coop  shall  be  as  nearly  of  a  size  and  weight 
as  possible.  They  bring  a  better  price  every  time.  One  dealer 
told  me  he  gave  me  a  better  price  than  any  other  person  he 
dealt  with,  because  he  never  had  to  look  over  the  coops  for 
under-weight  or  ailing  birds ;  he  could  take  broilers  or  fryers 
from  my  coops  and  send  to  his  most  exacting  customers  and 
be  sure  that  there  was  nothing  wrong  with  them.  Still  I  have 
had  more  than  one  person  tell  me  I  was  "too  fussy"  and  "put 
too  much  work  into  it,"  but  nothing  is  too  much  work  if  it 
brings  the  returns. 

Do  not  feed  "hotel  waste"  nor  "swill."  It  is  most  disgusting 
to  handle  and  will  not  produce  satisfactory  table  fowls.  The 
flesh  will  be  flabby  and  poor  in  flavor — not  firm,  dainty  and 
sweet  as  it  should  be.  Remember,  always,  that  your  product 
is  for  food,  and  that  it  is  time  wasted  to  cater  to  any  but  the 
best  trade.  Absolute  cleanliness  must  be  observed  in  the  in- 
cubator room  and  machines,  for  no  successful  hatch  ever  came 
from  a  dirty,  ill-smelling  incubator ;  in  the  brooders,  because  the 
little  chicks  cannot  do  well  in  dirt,  though  many  seem  to  think 
they  can ;  in  the  broiler  yards  and  houses,  for  I  believe  the  chief 
c?use  of  most  "chicken  ailments"  is  just  dirt.  Above  all,  feed 
clean  bran,  grain,  etc.,  with  fresh  green  food  or  vegetables  of 
some  kind,  in  clean  troughs.  Give  plenty  of  fresh,  clean 
water.  These  things  they  must  have. 

In  looking  over  my  records  I  find  that  for  the  first  season 
iitty  per  cent  of  all  eggs  put  in  machines  hatched;  of  these 
chicks  a  little  better  than  eighty  per  cent  were  raised — that  is, 
eighty  per  cent  of  those  kept  on  the  place.  Sixteen  hundred 
chicks  were  hatched  for  one  party  who  furnished  his  own  eggs ; 
the  number  of  chicks  delivered  to  him  at  24  hours  old  were 
75  per  cent  of  all  eggs  put  in  machines  for  him. 

Another  party  took  away  1050  chicks  which  was  a  little  bet- 
ter than  80  per  cent  of  all  eggs  she  brought.  These  are  verx 


A  TRUTHFUL  WOMAN. 


69 


good  averages  for  such  a  large  number  and  for  the  breeds 
handled— mostly  Brahmas  and  Buff  Cochins.  Many  small 
lots  of  eggs — one  or  two  settings  each — hatched  95  to  100 
per  cent.  One  whole  incubator  lot  of  450  eggs  were  absolutely 
infertile,  and  one  lot  was  upset  on  the  floor  by  an  assistant. 
This  lot  contained  205  fertile  eggs  which  had  been  incubating 
15  days.  These  accidents  may  be  expected  or  rather  may  come 
to  any  one,  but  must  not  be  allowed  to  discourage  one.  And  in 
spite  of  these  things  the  average  hatch  from  all  eggs  put  in 
machines  for  eleven  months  remained  a  fraction  over  50  per 
cent. 

As  to  prices  for  hatching,  here  is  where  common  sense  comes 
in  again.  I  charged  five  cents  for  each  chick — but  as  so  many 
infertile  eggs  were  brought  I  put  a  tariff  of  2,^/2  cents  on  each 
infertile  egg  to  pay  for  space  taken  up  in  machine.  This 
worked  well  as  people  were  more  careful  when  bringing  eggs 
to  have  them  fresh  and  from  good  stock.  Before  I  charged 
for  the  infertile  eggs,  one  woman  brought  me  26  eggs,  20  of 
which  were  infertile  and  the  remaining  six  weak  germs  died 
about  the  twelfth  day.  When  she  came  for  her  chickens  I 
told  her  there  were  none,  and  she  said:  Well,  I  didn't 
expect  them  to  hatch  really;  I  sold  all  the  fresh  ones 
and  some  of  these  had  been  on  hand  six  weeks"  This 
was  exasperating,  but  as  I  had  agreed  to  charge  only  for 
what  chicks  I  hatched,  I  could  do  nothing  but  change  my 
rates  for  the  future. 

If  one  is  selling  young  chicks  from  the  brooders,  they  will 
bring  from  ten  to  twenty-five  cents  each  according  to  quality 
and  breed,  at  hatching  time;  add  to  this  from  2^2  cents  to  5 
cents  per  week  each  for  care  and  feed,  and  it  is  fair  to  both 
parties. 

I  have  hatched  on  shares,  and  have  also  made  a  charge  of  a 
"lump  sum"  for  the  use  of  the  incubator — put  in  the  eggs 


70 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 


brought  me,  and  turned  over  chicks  at  not  later  than  24  hours 
old ;  if  kept  longer  an  extra  charge  was  made.  One  must  use 
judgment  and  there  are  many  ways  to  keep  up  a  steady  in- 
come from  this  branch  of  the  business.  But  be  careful  and  give 
np  one  customer  an  advantage  over  another.  It  does  not  pay  to 
work  on  anything  but  a  strictly  business  basis. 

The  best  hatches  were  obtained  in  March  and  April,  and  the 
greatest  demand  for  chicks  was  in  those  months,  though  it  was 
fair  in  February  and  continued  till  June  i.  But  the  early 
hatches,  though  lower  in  per  centage,  brought  in  more  money, 
as  the  chicks  hatched  were  the  ones  that  made  the  broilers  for 
the  best  market,  and  also  many  of  them  sold  well  for  breeding 
stock. 

I  think  it  better  to  go  slow  the  first  year  till  one  "gets  her 
bearings,"  so  to  speak.  After  you  are  well  accustomed  to  the 
incubators,  brooders,  etc.,  and  have  had  experience  in  deal- 
ing with  customers,  then  you  can  get  on  as  fast  as  strength 
and  ambition  allow. 

There  are  many  pleasant  things  to  counter-balance  the  disa- 
greeables. Try  and  think  of  this  when  things  go  "contrary" ; 
and  though  there  are  many  mistakes  and  bothers  to  encounter, 
remember  that  everybody  has  these  same  experiences  whether 
they  own  up  to  it  or  not,  but  everybody  hasn't  the  courage  to  try 
again  when  defeated. 

You  will  have  much  advice  given  you,  some  good,  some  bad, 
but  after  all  is  said,  you  must  work  it  out  for  yourself.  Take 
a  good  poultry  paper,  or  two,  keep  up  with  the  times,  keep  in 
touch  with  what  others  are  doing  in  the  same  line,  study  your 
work  carefully.  The  most  experienced  never  learn  it  all,  and 
the  work  is  most  fascinating  to  one  who  is  adapted  to  it. 

Many  people  think  "anyone  can  keep  hens,"  but  it  is  a  bus- 
iness as  well  as  any  other,  and  as  to  mental  equipment,  T  have 
met  some  of  the  brightest  and  most  refined  women  "keep- 


A    TRUTHFUL   WOMAN.  71 

ing  hens."  Some  of  them  reared  in  luxury  and  with  college 
educations,  so  that  on  this  score  no  one  need  flout  the  2Oth 
century  poultry- woman.  Right  here  in  Southern  California, 
some  of  the  most  successful  breeders  are  women  and  though 
the  financial  phase  of  it  should  not  be  the  main  object,  still 
it  is  one  that  we  all  are  aiming  for,  and  there  is  no  success  with- 
out it. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  there  is  big  money  in  it  at  the 
start,  but  there  is  a  good  living  if  it  is  managed  properly ;  and 
for  a  woman  who  must  earn  her  own  living,  and  perhaps  has 
children  to  make  a  home  for,  there  is  no  better  way  than 
poultry  raising. 

She  can  keep  her  children  with  her,  and  if  her  health  is  not 
good,  she  will  find  it  improving  steadily,  and  still  be  making 
a  good  living.  There  are  many  other  branches  of  the  busi- 
ness and  one  is  about  ceftain  to  gradually  work  into  one  or 
more  of  them  as  time  goes  on,  but  I  believe  the  incubating 
and  broiler-raising  to  present  the  best  opening  for  an  immediate 
income. 

The  chicks  will  cost  an  average  of  about  six  to  seven  cents 
each  when  hatched.  This  is  counting  the  cost  of  the  full 
machine  and  the  number  of  chicks  obtained,  these,  of  course, 
being  the  ordinary  stock.  These  chicks  will  readily  sell  for 
10  cents  each.  Those  that  are  not  sold  can  be  raised  for 
broilers.  They  should  weigh  at  10  to  12  weeks  old  about  two 
pounds  each,  at  an  average  cost  of  15  cents  each,  and  will 
readily  sell  at  from  $3.50  to  $5.00  per  dozen,  according  to  sea- 
son. To  obtain  these  results  one  must  make  it  a  business,  put 
in  your  whole  time,  as  you  would  in  any  other  business,  and 
you  will  find  yourself  amply  repaid — better,  I  believe,  than 
in  nearly  any  other  occupation  a  woman  can  take  up  in  this 
country. 


72 


POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 


The  plan  described  is  only  a  fair  sample  of  what  can  be  done 
by  a  woman,  with  a  boy  fourteen  years  old  to  assist. 

This  is  not  a  "Fairy  Tale"  nor  a  theory,  but  an  impartial 
record,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  of  work  actually  done. 

EVA  M.  P  ARCHER. 

Sunnyside,  Cal.,  Jan.   I,  1902. 


RAISING  CHICKENS  IN  THE  BACK  YARD. 

"Every  lawyer,"  said  Horace,  something  like  2000  years  ago, 
"hopes  some  day  to  be  a  farmer,"  and  retired  to  the  Sabian 
farm,  which  his  former  political  enemies  had  given  him,  to 
show  that  he,  at  least,  would  gladly  forgo  the  excitement  of  city 
life  for  the  calmer  and  truer  happiness  of  a  life  passed  in  the 
country.  The  man  is  much  the  same  in  our  day  as  in  his.  Every 
professional  man  whom  I  have  met  has  an  eye  turned  on  the 
country,  where  he  hopes  one  day  to  know  at  first  hand  the 
joy  of  the  fruits  of  his  return  to  the  land. 

HOW  I  BECAME  INTERESTED. 

Men  of  any  given  profession  appear  to  have  a  certain  prefer- 
ence for  some  particular  line  of  country  life.  Newspaper- 
men, for  instance,  pin  their  faith  on  chickens.  It  is  not  proba- 
ble that  the  newspaper  man  lives  or  has  lived,  who  had  not  had 
at  one  period  of  his  career,  an  elaborate  but  hazily  conceived 
plan  by  which  he  was  to  be  freed  from  the  slavery  of  his  city 
existence  through  the  medium  of  the  modest  hen. 

I  call  to  mind  one  enthusiast  who  night  after  night  sat  at  a 
desk  at  the  writer's  left,  "heading  up  copy"  and  talking  chick- 
ens, their  possibilities  and  the  stupidity  of  the  farmer  who 


RAISING    CHICKENS   IN    THE    BACK   YARD.  73 

failed  to  find  a  fortune  in  eggs.  In  the  course  of  newspaper 
events,  the  gentleman  in  question  drifted  to  New  York,  and 
the  writer  found  himself  in  the  country. 

An  express  package  and  a  letter  came  to  me  from  New 
York  one  day,  the  package  containing  thirteen  doubtful-look- 
ing eggs,  and  the  letter  a  reminder  that  my  old  friend  was 
still  daft  on  chickens.  It  was  a  genial  letter,  filled  with  kindly 
humor  and  happy  reminders  of  the  old  days  when  we  had 
discussed  chickens  and  news  together.  It  had  a  sob  in  it,  too, 
for  my  old  friend  is  worthy  of  a  better  fate  than  that  of  New 
York  correspondent  for  a  San  Francisco  paper. 

I  was  to  set  the  eggs,  since  I  was  living  in  the  country,  and 
report  results  to  him.  They  were  from  "the  purest  blooded 
fowls  (he,  in  his  enthusiasm  neglected  to  name  the  breed) 
in  the  country." 

I  set  the  eggs  under  a  hen  purchased  for  the  occasion.  They 
did  not  hatch. 

So  interested  had  I  become  in  speculating  on  the  probable 
color  of  those  unhatched  chickens,  however,  that  by  the  time 
I  had  buried  the  New  York  eggs,  I  had  two  other  hens  setting 
on  Plymouth  Rock  eggs  for  which  I  had  parted  with  four 
dollars.  Two  days  before  the  first  of  these  hens  was  to  hatch, 
I  found  her  dead  on  the  nest.  A  not  very  close  inspection 
disclosed  the  fact  that  she  was  covered  with  vermin,  a  con- 
tributing cause,  at  least,  for  her  ill-timed  death.  The  second 
hen  hatched  six  chickens,  of  which  the  hen  and  I  were  alike 
pardonably  ashamed.  My  little  boy  came  in  the  second  day  of 
the  existence  of  those  unhappy  chicks,  and  informed  me  that 
"dear  little  chickey  bird  gone  to  sleep."  I  went  out  to  dis- 
cover that  the  "chickey  bird"  had  indeed  gone  to  sleep — the 
lad  had  dropped  a  brick  on  it.  It  is  useless  to  deal  with  the, 
brief  and  unhappy  lives  of  those  five  chickens,  which  stood 
me  eighty  cents  apiece  at  the  shell.  They  were  a  melancholy 


74 


POUI/TRY  WEST  OF  THE  ROCKIES. 


object  lesson  that  I  didn't  know  how  to  raise  chickens.  My 
enthusiasm,  however,  was  flourishing  and  I  commenced  study- 
ing chickens.  I  am  still  studying. 

The  amateur  chicken  raiser,  they  tell  me,  commences  by  pur- 
chasing a  bone  cutter  and  chicken  literature.  I  didn't  get  the 
bone  cutter.  The  literature  was  interesting  but  confusing. 
One  authority  said  that  chickens  should  be  taken  from  the  in- 
cubator as  soon  as  they  are  dry ;  another  said  to  leave  them  in; 
the  incubator  from  24  to  60  hours.  One  said  that  boiled  eggs 
are  the  natural  food  for  little  chicks ;  another  had  it  that  eggs 
are  fatal  and  that  nothing  but  grain  should  be  fed  from  the 
start.  One  had  it  that  money  in  chickens  comes  from  care- 
ful crossing  of  thoroughbreds ;  another  that  only  from  pure- 
bred fowls  is  money  to  be  made.  One  said  to  set  hens ;  another 
to  set  incubators.  They  all  agreed  that  brooders  can  not  be 
gotten  too  hot.  At  the  expense  of  forty-nine  thorough-bred 
brown  Leghorn  chicks,  from  eggs  that  had  cost  a  small  for- 
tune, I  learned  that  all  were  mistaken  about  the  brooders. 
Some  said  feed  millet  seed;  others  told  of  clutches  lost  from 
millet  feeding. 

As  I  read,  I  had  had  the  chicken  house  freed  from  vermin, 
and  had  hens  setting  on  eggs  that  had  cost  much  money.  When 
the  chickens  began  to  arrive  they  passed  in  rapid  succession 
from  the  nest,  to  the  brooder,  to  the  steadily  growing  burying 
ground.  My  chicken  book  learning  was  found  to  be  worse  than, 
useless.  I  had  to  learn  from  experience.  In  a  measure  I  have 
learned.  Now  the  mortality  is  decreasing,  practically  stopped, 
in  fact.  My  back  yard,  that  of  an  ordinary  city  lot,  that  with 
fifty  unhappy,  too-sick-to-get-around  chicks  had  presented 
scenes  of  disorder  that  had  called  from  an  unsympathetic  fam- 
ily the  parody  on  Byron: 


A   SUCCESSFUL   BROILER 

"When  people  say  I've  told  you  fifty  times, 

They  mean  to  scold  and  very  often  do. 

When  people  say  I've  written  fifty  rhymes, 

They  make  you  dread  lest  they  recite  them  too — 

When  people  say  I'm  raising  fifty  chickens — 

They  make  you  think  their  yard  looks  like  the  dickens," 

now,  with  260  lively  youngsters  is  as  neat  and  free  from  con- 
fusion as  a  lawn.  The  chickens  are  healthy,  happy  and  grow- 
ing, and  the  hourly  funerals  attended  by  my  young  but  inter- 
ested son,  the  cat  scandalized  that  tender  chicks  were  buried 
and  not  eaten,  have  ceased.  That  the  chickens  are  doing  so 
well,  shows  that  they  can  be  successfully  raised  in  quantities 
by  any  family  who  has  a  back  yard.  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
tell  how  it  is  done  for  the  poultry  authorities  do  that.  In  a  se- 
ries of  articles  which  are  to  appear  in  Tree  and  Vine,  I  shall 
endeavor  to  tell  of  my  experiments,  experiences  and  disap- 
pointments, that  he  who  reads,  and  desires  to  do  so,  may  avoid 
the  many  mistakes  that  I  have  made,  and  raise  chickens  from 
the  start  without  first  turning  half  his  yard  into  a  burying 
ground. — Franklin  Hichborn,  in  Pacific  Tree  and  Vine,  San 
Jose,  Cal.,  July,  1901. 


A  SUCCESSFUL  BROILER  PLANT. 

At  the  request  of  the  author  we  are  going  to  present  to  the 
readers  of  this  book  some  hints  on  broiler-raising  as  exempli- 
fied by  us  on  our  ranch  in  Pasadena. 

Let  us  first  consider  the  climatic  conditions  to  be  overcome 
in  Southern  California.  We  came  from  New  England,  where 


76  POUI/TRY   WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 

the  winters  are  long  and  severely  cold,  where  chickens  are 
housed  in  buildings  constructed  equally  as  well,  and  in  many 
cases  better  than  many  of  the  so-called  ranch  houses  in  this 
country.  If  we  had  listened  to  the  advice  of  others  we  would 
have  built  houses  with  little  or  no  protection  from  the  weather, 
but  after  studying  the  situation  we  finally  decided  to  erect 
buildings  that  were  substantial  and  warm,  also  free  from 
draughts  and  convenient  for  the  caretaker. 

When  the  thermometer  varies  from  thirty  to  fifty  degrees 
in  twenty-four  hours  one  can  readily  see  that  it  is  quite  es- 
sential to  provide  suitable  quarters  for  young  chickens.  You 
may  locate  in  almost  any  section  in  Southern  California  and 
find  ideal  conditions  for  poultry  raising.  We  do  not  claim 
to  have  a  model  or  an  ideal  poultry  plant,  but  we  do  claim  to 
have  mastered  the  secret  of  broiler-raising  in  this  climate.  We 
will  not  enter  into  the  details  of  hatching,  as  that  subject 
is  thoroughly  and  scientifically  discussed  elsewhere.  We  are 
now  ready  to  remove  the  chicks  from  the  incubator  to  the 
brooder.  To  do  this  we  procure  a  basket  or  box  that  is  well 
lined  and  covered  with  a  cloth  of  some  kind  to  keep  them  warm 
during  the  short  trip  from  one  house  to  the  other. 

In  our  opinion  many  chicks  lose  their  lives  from  being 
chilled  while  on  this  journey.  The  brooder,  which  has  been 
previously  heated  to  a  temperature  of  ninety  or  ninety-five 
degrees,  is  well  sprinkled  with  fine  gravel.  The  first  day  of 
their  lives  in  the  brooder  has  almost  passed  and  they  have  not 
eaten  anything  but  sand.  As  night  comes  on  we  scatter  down 
for  the  little  fellows  a  liberal  supply  of  rolled  oats,  the  white 
flakes  of  which  will  instantly  attract  them.  In  the  evening 
as  we  are  regulating  the  heat  and  locking  up  for  the  night 
we  look  in  upon  them  and  are  pleased  to  find  them  well  dis- 
tributed over  the  hover  bottom. 

Their  contented  little  chirp  is  a  sure  sign  of  sufficient  heat, 


A    SUCCESSFTL   BOILER   PI<ANT. 

and  we  feel  reasonably  sure  they  will  not  huddle.  The  next 
morning  as  we  enter  the  brooder  the  babies  are  calling  for 
their  breakfast.  After  starting  the  fire  in  the  grain  room  we 
give  them  a  feed  of  rolled  oats  and  then  a  dish  of  skimme4 
milk  warmed.  Some  of  the  chicks  will  drink  but  will  not  eat, 
and  the  milk  keeps  them  along  until  they  will  eat.  We  have 
placed  before  them  a  dish  of  powdered  charcoal  and  one  of 
grit,  which  in  our  case  consists  of  finely  ground  shell.  The 
charcoal  we  consider  one  of  the  best  of  regulators,  and  the 
grit  is  absolutely  necessary,  as  everyone  knows.  These  we 
keep  before  them  at  all  times.  Our  chicks  are  fed  every  two 
hours  from  the  first  day  until  they  are  ready  for  market.  This 
is  done  by  the  clock  and  proves  very  satisfactory,  as  it  evens 
up  the  day  and  allows  the  other  work  to  be  done  regularly. 
We  feed  nothing  the  first  week  but  rolled  oats  and  millet  seec^ 
with  a  little  fine  cracked  corn.  During  the  second  week  we 
change  the  feed  somewhat  by  adding  cracked  wheat  to  the 
bill  of  fare.  We  also  try  them  this  week  on  a  little  mash  com- 
posed of  one-third  cornmeal  and  two-thirds  wheat  bran,  sea- 
soned with  salt  and  red  pepper.  This  is  made  into  a  crumbly 
(not  sloppy)  mash  by  adding  boiling  water.  They  will  not 
eat  much  at  first,  but  before  the  end  of  the  week  will  get  so 
they  will  look  for  it  as  you  alternately  feed  your  soft  and  hard 
grains.  Do  not  put  too  many  chicks  in  one  brooder.  Many 
people  over-crowd  them.  You  will  have  healthier  and  faster- 
growing  stock  if  you  give  them  plenty  of  room.  We  have 
now  brought  them  along  to  the  third  week,  and  from  now 
until  they  are  ready  for  market  we  intend  to  force  them  with 
all  the  feed  they  will  stand  up  under.  Let  the  first  feed  be  a 
hard  grain.  At  nine  o'clock  we  give  them  some  chopped  raw 
potatoes.  These  with  an  occasional  feed  of  chopped  cabbage 
constitute  all  the  green  feed  they  have. 

At  eleven  o'clock  feed  the  mash  as  above  described,  and 


78  POUT/TRY  WEST  OF  THE  ROCKIES. 

again  at  one  and  three.  The  last  feed  at  night  is  usually 
cracked  corn.  We  feed  only  what  they  will  clean  up  quickly. 
The  idea  is  to  keep  them  a  little  bit  hungry  all  the  time.  If 
the  feed  is  not  all  consumed  each  time  scant  the  next  feed. 
We  do  not  let  our  chicks  out  of  doors  the  first  week,  but  after 
that  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  have  them  out  on  the  ground 
each  day.  There  is  nothing  so  strengthening  to  growing  chicks 
as  plenty  of  exercise  and  an  abundance  of  fresh  air.  Our 
brooders  are  cleaned  twice  the  first  week,  three  times  the  second 
and  daily  thereafter  until  the  chicks  are  moved  to  larger  quar- 
ters. The  feed  trays  and  drinking  fountains  are  thoroughly 
disinfected  and  the  water  changed  twice  every  day.  With 
our  system  of  feeding  and  with  the  close  attention  we  give 
our  chicks  we  have  succeeded  in  producing  two-pound  broilers 
at  nine  weeks  and,  by  continuing  the  same  feed,  four-pound 
roasters  at  fifteen  weeks.  PACKARD  & 

Pasadena,  Cal. 


COLD  BROODER. 

Much  trouble  has  been  experienced  in  getting  the  chicks  to 
do  well  after  they  are  taken  out  of  the  brooder,  at  about  six 
weeks  old. 

The  temperature  in  the  brooder  must  be  run  very  low  for 
several  nights  before  the  chicks  are  removed,  and  reduced  as 
much  the  last  as  can  be  done  without  causing  the  little  fellows 
to  crowd,  and  then  the  cold  brooder  or  roosting  box  must  not 
be  too  large,  but  should  be  quite  tight;  and  unless  you  have 
rats  or  weasels  use  no  floor  in  it. 

One  breeder  says  he  uses  a  box  with  lath  set  up  about  two 


PORTABLE   HOUSES   AND   YARDS    FOR   ORCHARD.  79 

inches  from  the  ground  and  an  inch  apart  for  his  chicks,  and 
has  never  known  them  to  huddle.  One  end  of  the  box  is  on 
hinges  and  is  propped  open  during  the  day;  and  about  six  or 
eight  inches  above  the  lath  floor  some  three-inch  perches  are 
nailed  or  set  in  tightly,  and  the  chicks,  using  the  box  for  shade 
during  the  day,  will  jump  on  the  roosts,  and  very  soon  acquire 
the  habit  of  roosting,  and  the  earlier  this  is  done  the  safer  your 
chick. 


PORTABLE  HOUSES  AND  YARDS  FOR  ORCHARD. 

If  it  should  be  desired  to  keep  poultry  in  an  orchard,  where 
thorough  cultivation  is  often  necessary,  it  may  be  done  by  using 
light  houses  and  a  portable  fence  made  in  panels  and  fastened  in 
such  a  manner  that  it  can  readily  be  taken  down  and  moved. 

The  houses  may  be  built  about  4x5  feet  and  30  or  40  inches 
high,  and  40  to  50  in  height  in  front,  or  varied  to  suit  individ- 
ual preference,  and  with  shed  or  gable  roof,  as  preferred. 

Give  a  little  ventilation  at  the  bottom  in  such  manner  that  it 
can  be  increased  or  diminished  at  will,  according  to  the  state  of 
the  weather.  We  would  advise  putting  part  of  one  side  or 
end  on  hinges,  so  that  it  may  be  thrown  open  during  the  day 
to  allow  air  and  sun  in  the  house ;  and  this  hinged  part  may  be 
so  arranged  that  in  warm  weather  it  may  serve  as  an  awning 
for  shelter  from  the  sun,  if  necessary. 

We  would  not  plan  to  turn  each  house  over  during  the 
day  and  make  the  hens  feel  like  homeless  orphans,  as  we  have 
seen  some  do.  A  couple  of  nest  boxes  may  be  placed  at  one  end 
of  this  house  and  made  quite  dark. 

These  houses  may  be  made  of  inch  lumber,  resawed  and 
nailed  on  a  frame  of  1x4  stuff  and  a  couple  of  pieces  of  1x3 


80 


POUI/TKY   WEST   OF  THE    ROCKIES. 


nailed  on  the  outside  to  project  several  inches  beyond  the  ends 
of  the  house,  at  the  right  height  for  two  men  to  take  hold  of, 
and  the  house  will  be  easily  moved. 

For  the  fence,  panels  may  be  made  of  about  1x6  inch  boards 
10  or  12  feet  long  and  of  a  height  suitable  to  the  wire  netting 
you  wish  to  use.  The  upper  horizontal  bar  should  be  about 
eight  inches  below  the  top  of  the  uprights  at  the  ends.  These 
uprights  should  be  tapered  above  the  horizontal  board,  to  about 
two  inches,  so  that  there  is  no  good  footing  for  a  bird  that 
may  wish  to  fly  over  the  fence,  and  there  is  no  top  bar  for  them 
to  fly  up  on,  as  the  wire  will  be  even  with  the  tops  of  the 
posts. 

Make  triangular  supports  of  1x4  stuff  and  about  three  feet 
on  base  and  perpendicular,  and  hingle  one  to  each  end  of  the 
panel,  so  that  one  will  be  opposite  the  other  when  opened  at 
right  angles  to  the  panel.  These  may  be  laid  flat  on  the  panel, 
if  you  wish  to  load  them  on  a  wagon.  Two  3-inch  gate  hooks 
and  eyes,  or  hooks  and  staples,  on  the  ends  of  the  panels  to 
fasten  them  together  when  in  use  will  give  you  a  very  firm  and 
serviceable  fence  that  may  be  moved  rapidly  when  you  need 
to  cultivate  your  orchard,  or  change  the  pens  for  any  reason. 

The  height  of  your  fence  depends  on  the  variety  you  keep, 
the  size  of  the  run  and  the  age  of  the  birds,  as  old  hens  are  not 
as  apt  to  fly  as  young  ones. 

A  4-foot  fence  will  hold  most  of  the  Asiatics,  with  good- 
sized  yards,  and  a  5-foot  fence  will  hold  the  Americans,  and 
a  6- foot  fence  should  confine  the  Mediterraneans;  but  if  any 
prove  hard  to  confine,  a  smooth  wire  may  be  run  on  supports 
about  six  inches  above  the  top  or  the  same  distance  inside  and 
parallel  with  the  top. 


HOW  W.  E.  MERCER  MAKES  POULTRY  PAY. 


81 


HOW  W.  E.  MERCER,  OF  VENTURA,  HAKES  POULTRY  PAY. 

In  May,  1899,  The  Cultivator  of  Los  Angeles  published  the 
following  item : 

Mr.  W.  E.  Mercer,  who  has  made  many  friends  in  Los  An- 
geles while  building  the  Los  Angeles  incubators  for  J.  D.  Mer- 
cer, will  return  to  Ventura  this  month,  where  he  will  be  better 
fixed  to  keep  up  with  the  growing  demand  for  his  Brown  Leg- 
horns, which  are  exceptionally  fine  as  to  shape  and  color  and  as 
money-makers  are  hard  to  beat.  He  started  with  an  imported 
trio  at  a  cost  of  $30.  From  these  he  raised  20  birds  which  cost 
for  the  first  year's  food  $24.  They  produced  1264  eggs,  which 
sold  for  $137.20;  besides  there  were  plenty  for  home  use.  He 
values  the  present  18  pullets  at  $18,  which  leaves  a  credit  bal- 
ance for  the  year  of  $131.20. 

"Yes,"  says  Mr.  Mercer,  "there  is  money  in  hens — the  right 
kind.  They  are  up-to-date,  standard-bred  birds,  and  the  sale 
of  hatching-eggs  at  $2  per  13,  which  was  accomplished  by  ad- 
vertising is  where  the  money  comes  in." 

And  now  we  have  the  record  he  has  made  since  that  date. 
He  says : 

"On  the  ist  of  January  1899,  we  had  eighteen  hens,  and 
up  to  June  ist,  when  we  moved  to  Ventura,  we  had  sold  $80.85 
worth  of  eggs  and  chickens.  From  June  ist  to  January  ist, 
1900,  we  took  in  $135.70  for  eggs  and  birds,  besides  increas- 
ing our  flock  by  ten  hens,  worth  at  least  $i  each. 

'J'anuary  ist  we  had  28  hens,  and  used  trap  nests  in  one  pen 
of  four  hens  for  three  months,  with  the  following  result : 

"Hen  No.  I  laid  22,  24  and  24  eggs  in  January,  February 
and  March.  No.  2  laid  21,  23,  and  22  eggs.  No.  3  laid  18,  20 
and  17  eggs.  No.  4  laid  16,  14  and  15  eggs. 


82 


POULTRY  WKST  OF  THE:  ROCKIKS. 


"Most  of  these  eggs  brought  $2.00  per  setting.  From  Jan- 
uary ist  we  sold  eggs  and  stock  to  the  amount  of  $83.65.  From 
July  ist  to  January  ist,  1901,  the  sales  amounted  to  $136.70. 
We  raised  to  maturity  about  50  pullets  that  began  to  lay  in 
September,  when  eggs  were  worth  30  cents  per  dozen. 

"All  the  feed  used  during  the  year  cost  just  $104.00,  which 
leaves  a  net  profit  of  $116.35,  beside  increasing  the  stock  to 
80,  or  an  increase  of  52,  at  $1.00  each,  or  a  total  return  of 
$168.35  or  $6-73  per  hen.  On  January  ist,  1901,  our  flock  con- 
sisted of  80  laying-hens,  and  up  to  July  ist  took  in  $225.43  for 
eggs  and  stock,  at  a  net  profit  of  $181.25. 

"Most  of  these  sales  came  from  ads.  in  The  Live  Stock 
Tribune  and  Fanciers'  Monthly.  From  July  ist  to  January  ist 
my  income  from  my  poultry  has  been  $135.17  and  my  flock 
is  now  1 60  strong,  an  increase  of  80,  or  an  additional  $80,  giv- 
ing me  a  gross  income  for  the  year  of  $440.60." 


HOW  I  SUCCEEDED  AS  A  POULTRY  RAISER. 

"Nothing  succeeds  like  success"  is  a  common  saying,  and  if 
I  can  help  anyone  to  success  in  poultry  raising  I  shall  be  glad, 
especially  any  one  in  search  of  health  as  well  as  money.  And 
poultry  raising  is  quite  as  conducive  to  health  as  to  wealth,  if 
not  more  so. 

How  to  succeed  in  making  poultry  profitable  in  California 
has  always  been  a  puzzling  problem,  for  undoubtedly  it  is  more 
difficult  to  raise  chickens  successfully  in  Southern  California 
than  in  the  Middle  and  Eastern  States ;  in  proof  of  this  there 
are  no  wild  turkeys  and  no  wild  prairie  fowl  here. 


HOW    I    SUCCEEDED    AS    A    POUI/TKY    KAISER. 


83 


The  difficulty,  I  think,  is  in  the  climate — with  the  long,  dry 
summer,  and  the  lovely,  mild  winter.  This  lovely  health-giv- 
ing climate  is  particularly  healthy  for  vermin  of  all  kinds — lice, 
mites,  ticks,  fleas,  etc.  It  is  also  conducive  to  roup  and  kindred 
diseases.  From  May  to  October  there  is  no  rainfall,  green 
food  is  all  dried  up  and  there  are  no  bugs,  grubs  or  worms 
above  ground  for  the  poultry  to  feed  on ;  rarely  a  stray  grass- 
hopper. 

The  prevalence  of  vermin  and  lack  of  green  food  and  animal 
food  are,  in  my  opinion,  the  causes  of  failure  in  poultry  raising 
here.  Counteract  these  and  the  few  other  difficulties  vanish. 


MRS.   BASLEY'S  POULTKY  YARDS. 

There  are  three  conditions  of  successful  egg  production: 
Comfort,  proper  food  and  exercise. 

Comfort  means  clean,  comfortable,  quiet,  shady  nests  and 
roosts,  free  from  vermin. 

Proper  food.  Supply  what  is  lacking  in  nature  here,  green 
food  and  animal  food — giving  plenty  of  clean  water  and  grit 
and  furnishing  the  materials  with  which  to  make  eggs,  shells 
and  all. 


84 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 


Exercise.  To  be  healthy,  the  hens  must  work ;  they  must 
scratch  for  their  living,  as  well  as  for  yours.  Every  grain 
must  be  scratched  out,  dug  out,  if  you  want  healthy,  vigorous 
egg  layers. 

When  I  started  in  the  poultry  business  in  California  I  wanted 
the  fowl  that  would  bring  me  in  the  most  money.  I  had  tried 
many  varieties  in  the  East  and  decided  that  the  most  paying 
fowl  was  one  of  the  American  breeds.  "America  for  the 
Americans" ;  they  are  the  "all-purpose  fowl,"  excellent  layers 
and  large,  delicious  table  fowl. 


MRS.  BASLEY'S  RESIDENCE. 

The  White  Plymouth  Rocks  I  selected  as  the  ideal  fowl 
among  the  Americans,  knowing  them  to  be  almost  non-setters 
and  better  layers  than  any  other  of  the  Rock  or  Wyandotte 
families,  and  when  dressed  for  table  presenting  the  finest  ap- 
pearance. 

I  purchased  two  dozen  White  Plymouth  Rocks,  the  cock-bird 
a  prize  winner ;  took  good  care  of  them,  saved  some  of  the  eggs 
and  the  following  year  raised  about  two  hundred. 

To  commence  with,  I  had  two  henneries,  the  following  year 
six,  and  each  year  I  increased  the  number  of  henneries  and 


HOW    I    SUCCEEDED    AS   A    POULTRY    RAISEK. 

fowls,  adding  very  cautiously  new  blood  in  one  or  more  pens. 

The  American  standard  of  perfection  I  diligently  study,  cull 
out  every  fowl  that  does  not  come  up  to  the  mark,  and  cull 
again  and  again.  Save  the  eggs  from  my  best  layers,  which 
fortunately  are  my  highest  scoring  hens,  and  year  by  year 
succeed  in  having  "better  poultry  and  more  of  it." 

My  "culls"  I  kill,  dress  and  sell  to  customers  in  town,  above 
the  market  price,  and  I  have  a  larger  demand  than  I  can  supply. 
Eggs  that  are  not  fertile,  such  as  pullet  eggs,  I  also  sell  to  pri- 
vate customers,  getting  five  cents  a  dozen  above  the  market 
price,  because  the  eggs  are  not  only  fresh,  but  my  fowls,  being 
kept  so  clean  and  healthy  and  fed  so  well,  the  eggs  have  a  de- 
licious flavor  and  my  customers  are  only  too  glad  to  pay  extra 
for  them. 

During  the  spring  months  the  demand  for  eggs  for  hatch- 
ing is  larger  than  I  can  supply,  without  robbing  myself,  for  not 
only  are  my  fowls  noted  for  their  superior  egg-laying,  but 
whenever  they  have  been  exhibited  either  by  my  customers 
or  myself  they  have  been  prize  winners. 

The  two  enemies  of  the  poultry  breeder  in  California  I  have 
found  to  be  vermin  and  roup.  Roup  was  a  new  disease  to  me, 
my  fowls  in  the  East  never  having  had  it,  and  when  it  first 
appeared  in  my  yards  it  came  from  one  pen  having  been  shut 
out  all  night  in  a  very  heavy  fog;  all  took  cold  and  about  half 
died. 

After  that  I  Was  on  the  watch  and  as  soon  as  I  perceived  a 
chicken  sneeze,  or  one  running  at  the  nose,  that  one  was  rele- 
gated to  the  hospital  and  treated  for  a  few  days,  by  which 
time  it  was  usually  cured ;  or,  if  not,  it  was  killed  and  buried. 

I  find  that  a  two-grain  pill  of  quinine  and  half  a  teaspoonful 
of 'red  pepper  mixed  with  a  little  butter  will  usually  cure  a 
cold  with  one  or,  at  most,  two  doses. 

I  have  also  discovered  that  early  hatched  chickens  are  less 


86 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 


liable  to  take  cold,  which  develops  into  roup,  than  those  hatched 
late  in  the  summer;  also,  that  those  fowls  that  have  all  the 
green  alfalfa  they  can  eat  are  almost  immune. 

MRS.  A.  BASLE Y. 
Prospect  Park,  Cal. 


SOME  "POINTS"  ON  RAISING  CHICKS. 

In  giving  advice  on  this  line  I  have  a  record  of  ten  years 
of  successful  work  in  poultry  raising  to  show  that  I  have 
learned  some  of  the  things  that  all  should  know  who  undertake 
to  raise  poultry  in  Southern  California. 

The  rules  which,  if  followed  here,  will  bring  success,  will 
accomplish  the  same  result  in  other  localities.  I  would  advise 
any  inexperienced  person  who  wishes  to  engage  in  poultry 
raising  to  work  for  some  successful  breeder  until  they  get  the 
necessary  experience  in  caring  for  stock,  unless  they  have 
plenty  of  capital,  for  it  takes  a  great  deal  of  money  to  get  ex- 
perience by  experiment  sometimes. 

The  amateur  should  have  the  best  works  on  incubation  and 
care  of  chicks.  Regularity  in  feeding  is  a  very  important  point 
in  raising  chicks,  as  they  must  not  go  hungry  too  long. 

Protection  from  storms  and  cold  winds  must  be  provided  in 
good  brooders  and  roomy  houses. 

Plenty  of  shade  is  also  very  necessary  in  warm  weather. 

All  these  are  essential  to  success  in  poultry  raising.  If 
hatching  and  raising  chicks  artificially,  you  cannot  be  told  too 
often  that  the  chicks  must  be  allowed  to  run  out  of  doors  as 
much  as  possible  and  the  brooder  house  should  be  warm  enough 
so  that  they  will  not  have  to  depend  on  the  brooder,  but  can 


POULTRY   METHODS   AT  .PKTALTJMA.  87 

find  a  comfortable  place  in  the  house,  without  entering  the 
brooder,  during  the  day,  after  the  first  few  days. 

If  using  a  pipe  system  or  any  top  heat  brooder,  there  should 
be  an  adjustable  bottom  to  keep  the  little  chicks  near  the  pipe 
and  this  must  be  lowered  as  they  get  larger. 

I  use  no  fixed  bill  of  fare,  but  usually  feed  in  the  morning 
a  mixture  of  as  many  grains  as  possible,  broken  fine  enough  for 
the  chicks,  with  plenty  of  green  food.  At  noon  meat  in  some 
form  and  table  scraps,  cooked  vegetables,  etc.  During  the 
afternoon  mixed  grain  and  green  stuff,  and  at  the  last  meal  of 
the  day  I  give  them  all  the  cracked  corn  they  will  eat. 

When  I  can  get  it,  I  give  sweet  milk  to  drink  instead  of 
water,  and  all  drinking  dishes  and  feed  troughs  must  be  kept 
very  clean  and  wholesome. 

Keep  plenty  of  bone,  shell  and  charcoal  where  the  chicks 
can  have  free  access  to  them  at  all  times.  Your  brooders  and 
houses  cannot  be  kept  too  clean,  and  they  should  be  disin- 
fected once  a  week.  C.  E.  L3  POINTS. 


POULTRY  METHODS  AT  PETALUMA. 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  a  write-up  of  Mr.  C.  Nis- 
son's  poultry  ranch  in  the  vicinity  of  Petaluma,  and  was  pub- 
lished some  years  ago: 

Mr.  Nisson's  ranch  is  located  about  ten  miles  west  of  Peta- 
luma in  Two  Rock  Valley,  with  only  a  low  range  of  hills  in- 
tervening as  a  barrier  to  the  winds  from  the  ocean. 

The  western  part  of  Sonoma  county,  and  all  of  Marin  county 
is  hilly  and  mountainous,  and  is  devoted  mainly  to  dairying 
and  grain-growing.  Potato  and  poultry  raising  are  side  is- 
sues, but  the  latter  is  increasing  in  importance. 


83 


POULTRY    WEST    OF    THE    KOCKIHS. 


Contrary  to  expectations,  the  soil  increased  in  fertility  toward 
the  ocean,  and,  when  we  arrived  at  Mr.  Nisson's,  the  soil 
looked  rich  enough  to  grow  anything.  However,  the  lime  rock 
crops  out  and  runs  too  close  to  the  surface  for  fruit-growing, 
except  in  favored  spots. 

Our  first  sight  on  entering  the  yard  was  1000  Brown  Leg- 
horn chicks,  about  one  week  old,  running  in  and  out  of  a  large 
brooding-house.  These  chicks  were  all  hatched  at  once,  in  one 
incubator,  and  occupy  one  apartment  or  brooder,  without  parti- 
tions to  separate  them  into  small  flocks.  The  theory  that  only 
a  few  chicks,  forty  or  fifty,  should  be  allowed  to  brood  to- 
gether is  entirely  upset  by  Mr.  Nisson's  success  in  raising  1000 
in  one  compartment.  I  was  both  surprised  and  pleased  at  see- 
ing so  many  chicks  in  a  brooder,  and  all  as  lively  as  a  cricket ; 
not  a  droopy  one  in  the  whole  lot. 

The  heating  apparatus  is  quite  simple  and  inexpensive.  A 
common  cast-iron  heating  stove  is  set  underneath  the  floor, 
and  the  smoke  is  carried  in  tiles  underneath  and  through  a  bed 
of  sand  and  up  through  the  roof.  The  sand  is  thoroughly 
warmed  during  the  day,  and  no  heat-  is  given  the  chicks  at 
night ;  that  is,  there  is  no  fire  kept  up  in  the  stove.  The 
chicks  hover  on  the  sand,  and  are  covered  with  a  "mother 
board,"  about  six  inches  above  the  sand.  The  heat  from  their 
bodies  and  the  warm  sand  is  ample.  They  do  not  crowd  and 
do  not  get  chilled. 

From  the  brooder-house  we  climbed  a  hill,  from  the  top 
of  which  we  could  view  the  whole  ranch  of  100  acres,  and 
its  eighteen  colonies,  containing  1500  Brown  Leghorns.  From 
the  hill  we  could  see  a  man  plowing  around  the  houses  of  a 
colony,  and  sowing  grain,  and  another  hauling  water  on  a  sled 
with  two  horses.  The  colonies  are  not  stationed  at  regular 
intervals,  and  some  are  only  eight  or  ten  rods  apart,  and  yet 
the  fowls  know  their  own  house,  and  do  not  leave  it.  The 


POULTRY   METHODS   AT   PETALUMA. 


89 


roosting  and  laying-houses,  of  which  there  are  three  in  each 
colony,  are  moved  about  occasionally,  and  the  droppings  are 
scattered  over  the  adjacent  grain  land.  Soft  food  is  given 
them  every  two  days,  and  a  water-fountain  at  each  colony  holds 
a  two-days'  supply  of  water.  A  hopper  of  grain  is  kept  be- 
fore them  all  the  time.  The  land  immediately  about  the  roosts 
is  sown  several  times  each  year.  The  last  time,  corn  is  plowed 
in  and  barley  sown  on  top.  The  fowls  eat  off  the  barley,  and 
then  the  corn  comes  up,  and  they  have  green  food  and  some 
shade  all  summer ;  otherwise  they  have  no  protection  from  sun, 
wind  or  rain,  except  their  roosts  and  the  laying-houses.  It 
is  very  windy  so  near  the  coast,  and,  sometimes,  the  fowls 
are  compelled  to  seek  shelter  in  their  houses,  yet  Mr.  Nisson 
says  that  they  do  as  well  on  the  west  side  of  the  hill  as  they 
do  on  the  east,  where  the  wind  is  not  so  strong.  Mr.  Nisson 
raises  grain  on  his  hundred  acres,  all  of  which  goes  for  chicken- 
feed,  and  he  has  to  buy  more.  Last  year  his  feed  bill  amounted 
to  $2000.  Besides  raising  broilers  and  eggs  for  market,  Mr. 
Nisson  also  offers  stock  and  eggs  for  sale  from  his  select  col- 
onies, for  which  he  claims  the  desirable  merit  of  hardiness,  as 
well  as  other  points  that  go  to  make  up  good  Brown  Leghorns, 
and,  while  his  fancy  has  led  him  to  keep  the  Brown  variety 
only,  he  still  claims  equal  hardiness  for  the  White  variety  after 
a  thorough  trial  on  the  same  ground  now  occupied  by  his 
flocks. 

In  answer  to  an  inquiry  as  to  present  methods  in  the  great 
egg  country  of  Sonoma  and  Marin  counties,  Mr.  Nisson  writes 
as  follows: 

"The  colony  system  is  still  practiced  by  a  large  and  suc- 
cessful class  of  poultrymen  all  through  these  two  counties, 
where  poultry  is  kept  in  large  numbers  of  from  700  to  7000. 
Moreover,  it  would  be  hard  to  persuade  them  that  it  is  not 
the  best  way  to  handle  poultry. 


90 


POULTRY    WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 


"Most  of  them  keep  the  Leghorn,  and  you  will  find  some 
flocks  as  well  up  in  fancy  points  as  a  fancier  could  wish ;  but 
laying — it  has  got  to  be  first  and  foremost. 

"When  we  set  eggs,  we  use  from  one  to  five  cases  at  a  time, 
and,  of  course,  in  incubators.  Eggs  for  hatching,  from  good 
stock,  bring  from  three  to  ten  cents  per  dozen  above  the  mar- 
ket price.  Yet  there  are  some  who  sell  at  from-$i  to  $3  per 
setting. 

"The  colony  system  is  used  only  on  farms  large  enough  to 
make  it  practicable.  Hundreds  of  poultrymen  in  and  near 
Petaluma,  with  limited  space,  must  use  pens. 

"I  have  myself,  after  having  sold  my  ranch  in  Two  Rock 
Valley,  bought  land  here  in  Petaluma,  and  am  therefore  not 
using  the  colony  system,  but  have  my  land  divided  up  in  pens 
of  various  sizes." 

In  talking  with  Mr.  Nisson  a  few  days  ago,  he  remarked 
that  he  was  only  .keeping  poultry  in  a  small  way  now,  and 
had  only  incubator  capacity  for  5000  eggs  at  a  time.  If  that 
is  "small,"  we  would  be  pleased  to  see  more  "large"  plants. 


THE  GUINEA  FOWL— HER  WORTH  AND  HABITS. 

One  of  the  most  valuable,  and  yet  one  of  the  most  neg- 
lected, factors  of  the  poultry  yard  is  the  guinea  fowl.  The 
reason  for  this  state  of  affairs  is  due  to  the  fact  that  but  few 
people  know  or  realize  the  true  worth  of  this  peculiar,  yet  val- 
uable, bird.  Let  us  look  at  her  and  see  wherein  her  good 
points  lie. 

She  is  a  persistent  layer,  scarcely,  if  ever,  missing  a  day- 
Sundays  and  holidays  included.  The  eggs,  while  seemingly 


THE   GUINEA   FOWL — HER   WORTH   AND    HABITS. 


91 


small,  are,  in  reality,  nearly  as  large  and  afford  quite  as  much 
eating  as  the  average  hen's  egg,  for  the  reason  that  the  shell 
is  full.  This  may  seem  a  little  strange  to  the  person  who  has 
not  compared  the  two;  but  if  you  will  take  a  guinea's  egg 
and  a  common-sized  hen's  egg  and  break  the  two  in  a  plate 
or  any  other  flat  dish,  you  will  see  that  there  is  but  slight  dif- 
ference in  size.  Then,  again,  in  quality  they  are  far  supe- 
rior to  hen's  eggs ;  but  there  is  little  sale  for  them,  because  of 
their  apparent  deficiency  in  size. 

Another  very  valuable  feature  of  the  guinea  is  one  to  which 
many  people  seriously  object,  and  that  is  their  "continual 
racket" ;  but  right  here  is  the  secret  of  their  value.  That  "con- 
tinual racket"  is  not  so  continual  as  one  might  suppose.  Their 
never-ceasing  cry  of  "buckwheat,"  "buckwheat,"  is  no  more 
annoying  than  the  quacking  of  a  duck.  But  the  ear-piercing 
screech  (a  characteristic  of  the  bird)  is  only  occasioned  by 
the  approach  of  danger.  This  is  their  only  means  of  defense, 
and  while  they  are  defending  themselves,  the  other  fowls  are 
safe  as  well.  There  is  no  danger  of  chickens  being  carried 
off  by  hawks  if  one  keeps  a  few  guineas,  for  upon  the  ap- 
proach of  Mr.  Hawk,  he  is  greeted  by  such  a  volley  of  screams 
and  heart-rending  cries  as  to  frighten  him  away.  Should  he 
be  daring  enough  to  come  on,  he  will  be  met  in  the  air  by  the 
guinea,  who  will  soon  give  him  to  understand  that  it  is  to  his 
best  interest  to  leave — and  that  without  delay. 

Many  people  are  of  the  opinion  that,  although  the  guinea 
lays  a  great  many  eggs,  she  steals  her  nest  where  it  is  impos- 
sible to  find  it,  unless  by  chance  one  stumbles  upon  it. 
This  is  true  in  a  measure — so  far  as  the  stealing  of  the  nest 
is  concerned — but  this  drawback  is  very  easily  overcome  by 
simply  studying  their  habits  a  little.  Mrs.  Guinea  is  very 
clever  in  the  selection  of  a  depository  for  her  fruit,  but  she 
has  a  very  unwise  habit — unwise  for  her  own  good — for  when 


92 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE    ROCK  IKS. 


she  is  sitting  on  the  nest  she  will,  every  few  minutes,  utter  a 
peculiar  cry,  which  is  entirely  different  from  any  other.  If 
one  will  observe  this,  the  nest  is  very  easily  found. 

The  guinea  has  many  peculiar  traits  of  character.  What- 
ever one  does,  they  all  do.  Especially  is  this  true  among  the 
young.  If  one  takes  a  notion  that  the  sight  would  be  better 
from  the  top  of  the  fence  and  flies  up  there,  they  all  follow 
suit  without  delay,  and  when  one  gets  ready  to  fly  down,  they 
are  all  ready.  Should  some  apparent  danger  present  itself 
or  should  something  out  of  the  ordinary  take  place,  a  loucj 
cry  is  raised  by  one  member  of  the  flock,  and  just  that  instant 
the  leader  is  joined  by  all  the  rest..  When  the  little  fellows 
are  hatched,  they  greatly  resemble  the  little  prairie  chicken,  or 
grouse,  and  their  first  feathers  are  brown,  much  like  those 
of  the  prairie  chicken ;  but  when  about  two  or  three  months  old, 
they  shed  these  brown  feathers,  and  they  are  replaced  by  the 
blue  and  white-spotted  ones. 

As  a  table  fowl,  the  guinea  is  not  so  valuable,  as  the  flesh 
is  dark,  more  like  that  of  wild  birds,  but  when  young,  is  very 
good  eating.  No  poultry  yard — especially  on  the  farm — is 
complete  without  a  few  of  these  pretty  fowls.  If  they  have 
their  liberty — which  they  are  very  likely  to  have,  unless  their 
wings  are  clipped — they  need  never  be  fed,  as  they  are  great 
foragers,  and  will  make  their  own  living  without  asking  as- 
sistance from  anyone.  F.  W.  HAWES. 

Oxnard,  Cal.,  January  30,  1902. 


FEEDING    DUCKS. 


The  food  of  the  duck  is  both  vegetable  and  animal  in  na- 
ture.    In  the  wild  state,  it  gathers  its  food  from  brooks  and 


FEEDING    DUCKS. 

marshes,  consisting  of  flag,  grasses,  small  fishes,  water  in- 
sects, etc.  When  the  birds  are  raised  in  confinement,  this 
diet  must,  in  a  measure,  be  imitated  to  get  the  most  satisfac- 
tory results.  The  duck  has  no  crop,  the  food  passing  directly 
from  the  throat  to  the  gizzard,  and  as  a  consequence  the  food 
must  be  in  a  soft,  mushy  state.  Too  much  hard  food,  such  as 
grain,  does  not  agree  with  these  birds,  and  they  cannot  thrive 
on  it.  While  some  raisers  use  a  small  allowance  of  grain, 
others  do  not,  and  it  has  not  been  proved  to  be  of  any  advan- 
tage to  feed  it.  Soft  food  is  their  natural  diet,  together  with 
grasses,  vegetables,  and  animal  food.  The  proper  selection  of 
the  food  is  extremely  important  to  secure  the  rapid  growth 
of  the  duck,  and  the  ingredients  of  the  food  must  be  such  as 
will  afford  a  well-balanced  and  substantial  ration.  As  a 
whole,  it  may  be  said  that  the  rations  used  by  the  largest 
duck  raisers  are  essentially  the  same,  differing  only  in  the 
quantities  used  in  the  mixing.  Investigations  show  the  real 
values  of  the  food  to  be  the  same  for  producing  rapid  growth 
and  early  development.  The  duckling  grows  twice  as  rap- 
idly, and  is  a  much  heavier  eater  than  the  chick,  and  to  pro 
duce  the  best  results,  its  food  must  be  such  as  will  be  easily 
assimilated.  The  various  methods  of  feeding  given  in  this 
bulletin  are  recommended  for  raising  ducks  successfully. 

It  costs  from  6  to  12  cents  a  pound  to  raise  a  duck  for  mar- 
ket at  ten  weeks  of  age.  The  cost  of  feed  is  from  4>^  to  5 
cents  a  pound,  and  that  of  labor,  etc.,  is  from  4  to  8  cents  a 
pound.  It  costs  from  $1.75  to  $2.50  each  to  keep  breeding 
ducks  a  year. 

The  three  different  methods  of  feeding  ducks  are  as  fol- 
lows:  (i)  Feeding  ducks  for  market  (ten  weeks  old);  (2) 
feeding  young  ducks  to  be  kept  as  breeders;  (3)  feeding  old 
ducks.  The  first  method,  for  the  sake  of  convenience  and  to 


94 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 


explain  more  fully  the  composition  of  the  rations,  is  subdi 
vided  into  four  parts,  as  follows : 

(1)  From  time  of  hatching  to  five  days  old,  provide  the 
following  mixture :     Cracker  or  bread  crumbs  and  corn  meal 
equal  parts  by  measure;  hard-boiled  eggs,  15  per  cent  of  the 
total  bulk  of  crackers  and  meal;  sand,  5  per  cent  of  the  total 
of  crackers  and  meal.    Mix  with  water  or  milk,  and  feed  four 
times  a  day. 

(2)  From  five  to  twenty  days  old,  the  following  mixture: 
Wheat  bran,  two  parts  by  measure;  corn  meal,  one  part;  rolled 
oats,  50  per  cent  of  this  bulk ;  beef  scraps,  5  per  cent ;  sand,  5 
per  cent;  green  food,  10  per  cent.     Mix  with  water  to  a  dry, 
crumbly  state  and  feed  four  times  a  day. 

(3)  From  twenty  to  forty-two  days  old,  the  following  mix- 
ture :    Wheat  bran,  two  parts  by  measure ;  corn  meal,  one  part ; 
beef  scraps  5  per  cent  of  this  bulk;  sand,  5  per  cent;  green 
food,  10  per  cent.    Mix  with  water  to  a  dry  crumbly  state,  and 
feed  four  times  a  day. 

(4)  From   forty-two   to   seventy   days   old,   the   following 
mixture :     Corn  meal,  two  parts  by  measure ;  wheat  bran,  one 
part ;  beef  scraps,  10  per  cent  of  this  bulk ;  coarse  sand  or  grit, 
5  per  cent ;  green  food,  ten  per  cent.    Mix  with  water  to  a  dry 
crumbly  state  and  fed  four  times  a  day. 

The  hours  for  feeding  are  6  a.  m.,  10  a.  m.,  2  p.  m.,  and  6 
p.  m. 

Below  is  given  another  system  for  feeding  ducks  for  market- 
ing at  ten  weeks  of  age.  This  system  is  practically  the  same  as 
the  one  given  above,  differing  only  in  the  ingredients  used 
for  the  first  two  parts,  or  until  the  duckling  is  twenty  days 
old.  The  method  given  below  is  used  successfully  by  one  of  the 
largest  duck  raisers  on  Long  Island.  It  is  divided  into  three 
parts,  as  follows : 

(i)     From  time  of  hatching  to  seven  days  old,  feed  equal 


FEEDING    DUCKS. 


95 


parts  by  measure,  corn  meal,  wheat  bran  and  No  2  grade  flour, 
and  10  per  cent  of  this  bulk  coarse  sand.  Mix  with  water  to  a 
dry  crumbly  state  and  feed  four  times  a  day. 

(2)  From  seven  to  fifty-six  days  old,  feed  equal  parts  by 
measure,  corn  meal,  wheat  bran,  and  No.  2  grade  flour;  10  per 
cent  of  this  bulk,  beef  scraps;  ten  per  cent  coarse  sand,  and 
\2.y2  per  cent  green  foods  (green  rye,  oats,  clover,  etc.).    Mix 
with  water  to  a  dry  crumbly  state,  and  feed  four  times  a  day. 

(3)  From  fifty-six  to  seventy  days  old,  feed  two  parts  by 
measure,  corn  meal ;  one  part  wheat  bran ;  one  part  No.  2  grade 
flour;   \2.y2   per  cent  of  this,  bulk  beef  scraps;   10  per  cent 
coarse  sand;  12^/2  per  cent  green  food.     Mix  with  water  to  a 
dry  crumbly  state  and  feed  three  times  a  day — morning,  noon 
and  night.     Give  last  feed  an  hour  before  sundown. 

When  ducks  are  raised  for  breeders  they  are  fed  differently 
from  those  intended  for  market.  They  are  not  forced  so  much 
as  are  the  latter,  and  less  fattening  food  is  given  them.  The 
corn  meal  and  beef  scraps  are  reduced  to  one-half  the  quantity 
used  in  the  above  rations.  The  following  is  an  excellent  ration : 
Equal  parts  corn  meal,  wheat  bran,  green  food,  5  per  cent 
beef  scraps,  and  5  per  cent  coarse  sand  or  grit. 

A  ration  for  breeding  (laying)  ducks  is  recommended  as 
follows  :  50  per  cent,  by  measure,  corn  meal ;  1 5  per  cent  wheat 
bran;  15  per  cent  green  foods  (cooked  vegetables,  such  as 
potatoes,  turnips,  etc.)  ;  12  per  cent  beef  scraps,  and  8  per  cent 
coarse  sand  or  grit.  Mix  with  water  to  a  dry  crumbly  state 
and  feed  twice  a  day — morning  and  night.  After  the  breeding 
season  is  over  and  the  ducks  have  stopped  laying  they  are 
changed  from  this  to  the  equal-parts  ration,  as  given  above, 
for  ducklings  from  seven  to  fifty-six  days  old. 


96  POULTKY   WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 


THE  WHITE  LEGHORN  IN  CALIFORNIA. 

The  White  Leghorn  is  not  indigenous  to  the  soil  and  climate 
of  California,  but  it  is  certainly  adapted.  This  fact  is  appreciated 
by  those  who  have  reared  the  White  Leghorn  in  the  eastern 
states,  where  it  is  often  a  question  of  keeping  the  birds  in  the 
cellar  during  a  portion  of  the  winter  or  having  them  appear  in 
the  spring  minus  more  or  less  of  their  head  ornaments.  I 
would  not  be  surprised  at  any  time  to  hear  eastern  fanciers 
advocating  frost-combed  Leghorns  as  the  "proper  thing"  as 
much  as  bob-tailed  fox-terriers. 

The  Leghorns  are  natives  of  Italy,  and  it  is  impossible  in  a 
few  decades  to  entirely  readjust  their  constitutions  to  cold 
climates.  However,  I  do  not  believe  there  is  a  clime  where 
they  will  not  hold  their  own  in  egg  production,  but  their  highest 
production  is  naturally  found  in  mild  climates,  of  which  there 
is  none  more  favorable  than  the  Italy  of  America.  Here  they 
are  at  home.  They  can  range  for  the  greater  portion  of  theii 
food  the  year  around,  which  they  love  to  do.  Here  it  is  even 
possible,  though  not  best,  for  them  to  go  without  shelter  the 
entire  year.  Here,  with  an  alfalfa  patch  to  roam  in  and  a 
limb  to  roost  on,  their  production  will  exceed  that  in  the  eastern 
states  where  expensive  buildings  and  a  long  season  of  grain 
feeding  are  necessary.  By  inexpensive  shelter  and  a  little  grain 
their  production  in  this  climate  can  be  still  farther  increased. 

In  the  east,  according  to  the  best  available  data,  there  is  one 
Leghorn  in  every  eight  fowls — turkeys,  ducks,  and  geese  in- 
cluded. 

According  to  the  same  data,  there  is,  in  California,  one  Leg- 
horn in  every  four  fowls,  or  exactly  double  the  proportion. 
This  is  a  large  showing  considering  the  large  variety  of  fowls, 


THE   WHITE   LEGHORN   IN   CALIFORNIA. 


97 


and  proves  the  special  adaptation  of  the  Leghorn  to  this  climate. 
No  other  class  of  fowls  is  raised  in  such  large  numbers  and 
none  with  as  much  success. 


HUMBERT  II.    AND    MATES.        WHITE    LEGHORN    PEN   NO.   4. 
LYTLE   POULTRY   RANCH. 

Of  the  total  number  of  Leghorns  the  White  form  nearly  one- 
half.  They  are  the  favorites.  They  average  a  little  larger 
because  inbreeding  is  not  so  often  resorted  to  as  it  is  with  the 
Brown  and  Buff  varieties  in  order  to  get  the  proper  shade  of 
plumage.  The  popularity  of  the  White  is  doubtless  still  further 
accounted  for  by  the  impressive  sight  of  a  flock  of  White  Leg- 


98  POULTRY   WKST   OF    THE    ROCKIES. 

horns  on  a  green.  Such  a  sight  has,  without  question,  in- 
fluenced many  a  one  in  his  selection. 

None  should  let  the  thought  that  the  Leghorn  is  not  a  good 
meat  or  market  fowl  deter  him  from  keeping  them.  I  have 
sold  White  Leghorn  chicks  at  ten  weeks  of  age  that  weighed 
one  an  one-half  pounds  each,  which  is  as  much  as  the  chicks 
of  any  breed  can  be  brought  to  weigh  at  that  age.  At  any  age 
a  Leghorn  will  bring  as  much  in  proportion  to  its  cost  of  pro- 
duction as  any  other  fowl.  Ten  pounds  of  Leghorn  meat  can 
be  procured  as  cheaply  as  ten  pounds  of  Plymouth  Rock,  Wyan- 
dotte,  Brahma  or  Cochin  meat  and  will  bring  as  much  per 
pound.  I  do  not  say  I  would  select  the  Leghorn  if  I  intended 
to  do  a  large  broiler,  fryer  or  roaster  business.  The  shape  of 
the  Leghorn  is  not  quite  so  good  at  the  fryer  age,  and  the 
Leghorn  will  not,  of  course,  make  a  large  roaster,  although 
two  Leghorns  will  equal  any  large  roaster  both  in  quantity 
and  quality.  The  disadvantages  of  the  Leghorn  along  the 
meat  line  are,  therefore,  small  in  comparison  with  other  con- 
siderations. 

But  the  successful  rearing  of  any  class  of  fowls  is  not  at- 
tained without  study  and  effort.  The  way  is  not  an  easy  one, 
but  if  persistently  followed  will  bring  one  to  the  desired  goal. 
What  I  shall  say  in  this  article  is  intended  for  the  one  who 
contemplates  rearing  White  Leghorns  for  profit,  the  one  who  is 
in  earnest  and  who  will  do  whatever  is  necessary  to  succeed. 
I  shall  endeavor  to  outline  the  essentials  of  a  progressive  and 
profitable  business. 

In  the  first  place,  the  prime  requisite  of  success  is  space. 
I  believe  it  is  a  greater  mistake  to  try  to  raise  fowls  on  too 
limited  an  area  than  it  would  be  to  try  to  raise  any  other  kind 
of  live  stock  in  close  quarters.  For  a  number  of  reasons,  cattle, 
sheep  or  hogs  can  be  raised  more  successfully  in  comparatively 
small  yards  than  can  fowls.  In  the  first  place  fowls  breathe 


THE   WHITE   LEGHORN   IN   CALIFORNIA.  99 

more  rapidly,  live  at  a  higher  temperature  and  consume  more 
food  in  proportion  to  their  weight  than  do  the  larger  animals 
and  are  in  every  way  more  active.  For  these  reasons  they  need 
more  proportionate  space  for  their  daily  evolutions. 


RICHELIEU    AND    MAThS.        WHITE   LKGHORN    PEN    NO.    8. 
LYTLE   POULTRY   RANCH. 

In  the  second  place,  they  need  at  least  sufficient  space  to  grow 
all  the  green  food  they  will  eat.  A  fowl  prefers  to  pick  its 
own  green  food  at  will. 

In  the  third  place,  they  need  more  space  than  merely 
enough  to  supply  what  green  they  will  eat.  They  are 


100 


POULTRY   WEST    OF   THK    ROCKIES. 


better  off  when  not  compelled  to  eat  the  large,  coarse 
spears  or  stalks  of  any  kind  of  green.  Their  natural 
food  is  the  tender  spears  and  the  leaves  of  the  larger 
stalks.  The  area  upon  which  fowls  are  kept  should  be 
large  enough  to  allow  the  full  grown  alfalfa,  or  what- 
ever the  green  may  be,  to  be  cut  occasionally  for  larger  stock. 
In  this  way  there  will  be  no  waste.  The  full  production  of 
the  land  will  be  secured.  The  fowls  will  not  trample  down 
tall,  green  food.  In  the  main  they  will  simply  have  paths 
through  it.  For  this  reason  alone  it  is  evident  that  fowls  re- 
quire more  area  in  proportion  to  their  size  than  do  larger  ani- 
mals, for  larger  animals  are  well  provided  for  when  they  have 
sufficient  space  to  furnish  just  what  green  food  they  will  eat. 
In  the  fourth  place,  fowls  should  have  more  area  in  propor- 
tion to  their  size  in  order  to  enable  them  to  get  all  the  animal 
food  in  the  way  of  bugs  and  worms  which  they  require.  A 
piece  of  ground  barely  sufficient  to  pasture  them  will  not  fur- 
nish sufficient  animal  food.  I  know  that  there  are  a  great  many 
places  where  fowls  are  kept  in  a  small  space  with  fairly  good 
success,  and  occasionally  with  marked  success.  I  have  done 
so  myself.  Sometimes  the  success  is  real,  but  often  it  is  only 
apparent.  Even  where  it  is  real  it  cannot  last  long,  for  the 
effect  of  unnatural  conditions  is  bound  to  tell  sooner  or  later. 
Whether  or  not  an  undertaking  is  profitable  does  not  depend 
upon  the  amount  of  production  but  upon  the  value  of  the  pro- 
duct over  and  above  the  cost  of  production.  The  production 
may  be  large  and  yet  the  profit  wanting.  Cost  of  production 
is  much  greater  under  unnatural  conditions.  For  instance, 
the  cost  of  the  green  food  is  much  greater  where  labor  is  neces- 
sary to  prepare  it  for  the  fowls.  No  inconsiderable  amount  of 
time  is  required  to  cut  it,  to  run  it  through  a  feed  mill  and  to 
feed  it  to  the  fowls.  All  this  time  is  saved  where  the  fowls  pick 
their  own  green  food.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  green  food  can 


THE   WHITE   LEGHORN    IN   CALIFORNIA.  101 

not  be  cut  and  fed  to  the  fowls  with  profit,  but  I  do  mean  to  say 
that  the  profit  will  be  greater  where  the  other  plan  is  pursued, 
and  that  it  should  be  the  ultimate  aim  of  every  poultry  keeper. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  fowls'  animal  food,  and  to  an  even 
greater  degree.  Good  meat,  meal,  blood  meal  or  ground  bone 
can  be  fed  with  profit,  but  their  cost  in  both  cash  and  labor 
reduce  the  profit  to  a  moderate  amount.  Naturally  everyone 
desires  to  pursue  the  course  which  will  yield  the  greater  profit. 
There  will  also  be  indirect  profit  in  giving  fowls  sufficient  range 
to  enable  them  to  get  all  the  bugs  and  worms  they  need.  It 
is  their  natural  food  and  they  will  be  healthier,  and  in  every 
way  thrive  better  upon  it;  first  because  of  the  exercise  neces- 
sary to  obtain  it,  and,  second,  because  of  the  absence  of  objec- 
tionable features  such  as  uncertain  ingredients  in  the  meal  or 
blood  meal,  or  fat,  and  sharp  splinters  of  bone  in  the  fresh 
ground  bone.  From  practical  experience  I  can  recommend 
meat  and  blood  meal  and  ground  bone  as  profitable,  and  often 
necessary,  poultry  foods,  but  I  can  recommend  the  natural  food 
still  more  highly.  The  natural  animal  food  will  give  the  health- 
iest, the  most  productive  and  the  most  profitable  fowl.  And 
that  is  what  we  all  desire. 

The  question  of  housing  is  next  in  importance. 

As  already  stated  a  fowl  can  get  along  without  any  housing 
in  this  climate,  and  it  can  be  said  most  emphatically  that  they 
are  far  better  off  roosting  in  a  tree  or  on  a  fence,  than  in  a 
poorly  ventilated  house,  or  a  crowded  house,  or  an  unclean 
house.  But  if  these  objectionable  features  are  avoided,  fowls 
can  be  housed  with  advantage  and  profit.  Protection  from 
rain  and  wind  means  a  saving  in  feed,  better  health  and  in- 
creased production. 

In  planning  a  poultry  house  one  should  aim  to  give  all  the 
space  necessary  for  the  health  of  the  fowls  and  at  the  same 
time  not  allow  any  superfluous  space.  If  unnecessary  material 


POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE   ROCKIES. 

and  labor  are  put  into  the  building  the  fowls  will  not  be  able 
to  return  a  good  interest  on  the  investment.  Five  square  feet 
of  floor  space  for  each  fowl  is  sufficient,  many  poultry  writers 
notwithstanding,  and  it  is  all  one  can  afford  to  allow,  even 
in  breeding  pens.  Three  square  feet  of  floor  space  to  each 


BARRED   PLYMOUTH    ROCK    PEN   NO.    21,   CONTAINING    FORTY   FEMALES 
A~ND   THREE   MALES.       LYTLE   POULTRY   RANCH. 

fowl  is  often  sufficient  in  houses  intended  for  fifty  or  more 
laying  hens.  In  other  words  a  building  10x15  feet  is  large 
enough  for  two  breeding  pens  of  fifteen  fowls  each,  or  a  single 
pen  of  fifty  laying  hens. 


THE   WHITE   LEGHORN   IN   CALIFORNIA.  103 

The  walls  of  the  building,  to  a  point  at  least  one  foot  below 
the  roosts,  should  be  tight.  Below  that  there  should  be  large 
ventilators  on  all  sides  of  the  building,  or  the  entire  space  from 
one  foot  below  the  roosts  to  the  ground  may  be  left  open,  the 
building  resting  on  posts.  A  building  with  large  ventilators  is 
shown  in  cut  3.  In  either  case  the  wind  passes  through  be- 
neath the  fowls,  carrying  out  the  impure  air  and  furnishing  a 
constant  supply  of  fresh  air.  The  air  from  the  fowls  at  first 
rises  and  then,  as  it  cools,  settles  to  the  floor  and  is  carried 
out  with  the  current  of  air  which  also  supplies  the  fresh  air. 
In  this  way  the  fowls  are  never  in  a  draught,  which  is  essential, 
and  at  the  same  time  they  have  the  advantage  of  the  impure  air 
removed  and  a  constant  supply  of  fresh  air,  which  is  also  very 
essential,  even  more  so  than  the  avoidance  of  a  draught.  It 
any  ventilation  is  put  in  the  roof  it  should  be  a  regular  chimney 
top  ventilator,  so  that  there  can  be  no  draught  down  through  it. 

The  building  should  have  a  good  shake  or  shingle  roof  with 
twelve  to  eighteen  inches  pitch  to  every  three  feet  of  hori- 
zontal space  covered.  Some  may  consider  such  a  roof  expen- 
sive, but  even  a  good  roof  will  leak  too  much. 

At  least  one-third  of  the  south  side  of  the  building  should  be 
glass.  It  is  a  good  plan  to  place  the  roosts  and  dropping  boards 
also  along  this  side  of  the  building.  If  the  window  or  windows 
are  properly  arranged,  the  sun  will  then  sweep  all  the  roosts 
and  dropping  boards  in  the  course  of  the  day. 

I  consider  the  question  of  board  or  ground  floor,  optional. 
If  one  desires  to  use  scratching  material,  board  floors  are  prac- 
tically necessary,  as  straw,  mixed  with  dirt,  becomes  damp 
and  musty.  Large  ventilators,  instead  of  sides  entirely  open 
at  bottom,  will  have  to  be  used  with  board  floors  and  scratching 
material.  Otherwise  too  much  rain  can  enter. 

I  do  not  consider  scratching  material  necessary.    If  the  fowls 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THK    ROCKIES. 

have  plenty  of  space  to  roam  over  they  will  get  plenty  of  ex- 
ercise, and  can  be  fed  their  grain  in  a  trough. 

A  building  entirely  open  around  the  bottom  and  without 
floor  is  decidedly  cheaper. 

The  question  of  food  has  been  more  or  less  discussed  in  con- 
nection with  yarding  and  housing.  In  addition,  a  number  of 
points  remain  to  be  considered :  First,  in  the  natural  state  a 
fowl  begins  the  day  with  an  empty  craw  which  it  proceeds  to 
fill,  and  which  by  night  time,  and  not  before,  is  ordinarily  well 
stocked.  If  a  fowl  is  fed  in  the  morning  it  does  not  need  to 
hustle  for  its  food,  and  indolent  habits  are  induced.  Some 
may  say  feed  them  in  litter  and  make  them  scratch  for  their 
feed.  To  be  sure  that  is  better  than  feeding  them  their  morning 
feed  in  a  trough,  but  even  from  litter  the  food  is  easily  ob- 
tained. Still  more  important  the  fowl  should  be  out  on  its 
range  hustling  for  its  own  food  instead  of  eating  up  what  has 
cost  much  human  labor  to  produce.  The  exercise  in  the  fresh 
air  will  enable  the  fowl  to  make  the  best  use  of  what  it  gets, 
and  in  that  there  is  a  great  deal.  In  all  life  it  is  not  the  amount 
of  food  consumed  but  the  use  that  is  made  of  it.  The  system  of 
a  perfectly  healthy  fowl  will  get  more  good  out  of  one  kernel 
of  wheat  and  produce  more  out  of  it  than  a  quasi  healthy  fowl 
will  out  of  two  kernels  of  wheat. 

Where  the  range  is  what  it  should  be  it  will  not  be  necessary 
to  give  the  fowl  any  noon  meal  either.  What  has  just  been  said 
with  regard  to  a  morning  meal  can  be  said  with  equal  force 
with  regard  to  a  noon  meal.  During  the  day  the  fowl  will  find 
all  the  food  it  needs  or  should  have.  Any  more  would  be  a 
detriment,  making  the  fowl  sluggish,  and  adding  expense. 

In  the  evening  the  fowls  should  be  fed  grain  in  a  trough 
and  allowed  to  have  all  they  will  eat  in  the  space  of  twenty 
or  thirty  minutes.  As  their  craws  are  already  fairly  wen  filled, 
they  will  only  eat  what  they  need  in  the  way  of  grain  food. 


THE   WHITE   LEGHORN    IN    CALIFORNIA.  105 

This  will  supplement  what  they  have  found  during  the  day, 
and  they  will  eat  little  or  much  according  to  the  appetitie  they 
have  remaining.  Their  day's  work  is  done  and  they  should 
be  allowed  to  have  all  they  need  to  supply  the  requirements  of 
a  full  and  abundant  life  and  production.  Such  an  amount 
they  will  take  in  a  few  minutes  time  after  the  food  is  placed 
before  them.  Corn  and  wheat  are,  of  course,  the  staple  foods, 
and  should  be  fed  alternate  evenings,  with  a  feed  of  barley  once 
a  week.  Any  food  remaining  should  be  removed  at  the  end  of 
half  an  hour  at  the  latest,  for  after  that  time  the  fowls  will 
simply  eat  because  the  food  is  before  them,  and  not  because 
they  want  it  or  need  it.  It  will  simply  tend  to  gorge  them  and 
do  them  more  harm  than  good. 

During  the  night  the  fowl  will  readily  take  care  of  its  craw 
full  of  food  and  in  the  morning  will  be  ready  for  another  day 
of  activity,  production  and,  in  a  large  measure,  self-support. 

In  connection  with  the  food  there  are  two  other  items  which 
require  close  attention. :  They  are  the  water  and  grit  supplies. 
The  simplest  and  best  watering  device  is  the  ordinary  milk 
pan.  I  consider  it  the  best  because  there  is  only  one  piece  to 
clean  and  because  its  shape  is  such  that  it  is  easily  cleaned. 
The  pan  should  have  a  stationary  cover  beyond  which  only  a 
lip  of  the  pan  should  extend,  so  that  the  fowls  cannot  soil  the 
water,  nor  the  sun  warm  it  too  much  in  summer. 

The  grit  supply  should  consist  of  two  kinds.  A  box  of  com- 
mon gravel  should  be  kept  before  the  fowls.  It  is  cheap  grit, 
and  at  the  same  time  relished  by  them.  They  should  also  have 
a  box  of  some  kind  of  lime-shell,  such  as  oyster  or  clam  shell. 
They  need  this  in  their  business  as  there  is  not  enough  lime 
in  gravel. 

Avoid  broken  crockery  and  glass,  especially  glass,  for  the 
sharp  splinters  will  often  pierce  the  gizard  and  cause  the  death 
of  the  fowl.  Charcoal  is  a  good  article  to  keep  before  the 


106 


POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE    ROCKIES. 


fowls,  and  should  be,  whenever  its  cost  and  the  labor  of  prepa- 
ration are  not  too  great. 

In  conclusion  let  me  say  a  word  in  regard  to  the  disposal  or 
sale  of  the  stock  and  eggs.  In  the  first  place,  keep  thorough- 
bred fowls  and  only  thoroughbred  fowls.  A  flock  of  uniform 
color  is  much  more  sightly  and  there  is  much  more  satisfaction 
in  working  with  them.  There  is  an  incentive  to  see  how  well 
one  can  do  with  them,  in  perfecting  their  shape  and  plumage 
and  in  increasing  their  production. 

In  addition  there  is  always  call  for  thoroughbred  stock  and 
eggs,  which  can  be  sold  at  good  prices.  Thoroughbred  fowls 
will  bring  at  least  twelve  dollars  a  dozen  for  breeders,  while 
mixed  fowls  will  not  bring  more  than  five  or  six  dollars  a 
dozen  for  any  purpose.  Thoroughbred  eggs  will  bring  at  least 
one  dollar  a  setting  when  other  eggs  are  selling  for  twenty 
cents  a  dozen.  In  short,  if  you  do  not  want  to  become  inter- 
ested in  your  poultry,  and  do  not  want  your  business  to  grow 
and  expand,  keep  fowls  that  are  not  thoroughbreds. 

A  flock  of  thoroughbred  fowls  is  sure  to  become  known,  and 
will  become  a  source  of  pleasure  and  profit  to  its  owner. 

G.  I.  LYTLE. 


MY    AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

I  am  only  an  old  rooster.  Don't  blame  me  for  that.  I  can't 
help  it  and  wouldn't  if  I  could.  I  wouldn't  be  a  hen  or  woman 
for  anything,  and  so  far  as  my  experience  with  men  goes,  they 
are  mostly  feather-headed  cranks  that  can't  be  depended  on. 
For  instance,  let  me  tell  you  about  my  first  master:  He  knew 
that  he  thought  he  knew  all  about  poultry  raising,  but  he 
didn't  know  that  he  didn't  know  the  first  principles. 


MY   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  107 

His  mother  had  raised  chickens  in  Massavania — I  think  it 
was,  and  he  was  sure  her  methods  would  be  all  right  for  Cali- 
fornia. So  he  bought  a  large  number  of  fowls  of  all  kinds  and 
no  kind,  mostly  no  kind  "like  mother  had."  He  let  his  poultry 
roost  in  trees  "like  mother  did."  It  kept  them  vigorous,  he 
said.  He  let  all  kinds  and  ages  run  together  "because  mixed 
chickens  and  scrubs  are  more  vigorous  than  the  pampered, 
high  bred,  pure  stock,"  he  said. 

He  had  such  poor  success  along  this  line,  however,  that  he 
had  to  buy  some  eggs  for  hatching,  and  from  such  eggs  I  and 
my  mates  came  forth. 

We  were,  of  course,  hatched  by  a  hen,  and  though  I  don't 
want  to  be  hatched  that  way  again,  yet  let  me  tell  you  my  mother 
was  as  good  an  old  yellow  hen  as  ever  trod  on  chicks. 

How  well  I  remember  her  great  foot  getting  across  my  neck 
once  and  how  I  wished  I  could  "raise  the  wind"  enough  to 
peep,  but  just  as  I  thought  my  finish  was  come,  a  louse  bit  her 
on  the  neck  and  she  lifted  her  foot  to  scratch.  I  was  saved. 
I  have  never  known  a  louse  to  do  any  good  since,  and  surely  I 
have  had  experience  with  them. 

My  poor  old  mother  did  her  best  to  take  care  of  us,  but 
lice  clung  to  our  feathers  by  day  and  mites  made  the  night  hid- 
eous. Our  master  said  we  would  dust  the  lice  off  when  we  got 
older,  and  once  he  greased  our  mother's  feathers  with  sulphur 
and  lard,  and  I  just  wished  he  had  to  sleep  in  that  kind  of  a 
bed  himself.  Of  the  ten  of  us,  one  fell  into  a  pail  of  sour 
swill  that  we  were  expected  to  drink  from.  It  died.  Three 
were  squeezed  to  death  under  mother's  feet.  One  a  rat  got, 
and  the  rest  of  us  picked  lice  until  mother  wanted  to  get  mar- 
ried again.  Then  came  a  hard  time  for  us.  How  we  did 
plead  with  mother  to  come  back  to  us,  but  no !  she  left  us  one 
cold  night  and  took  the  bed  with  her. 

Our  owner  heard  us  crying,  and  drove  us  all  into  the  rasp- 


108 


POULTRY   WKST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 


berry  patch  so  that  we  would  learn  to  roost  on  the  branches; 
but  we  all  huddled  in  a  bunch  of  weeds  till  morning  and  kept 
each  other  warm. 

After  that  we  found  an  old  box  that  we  crept  into  after  night, 
but  it  was  awfully  cold  "round  the  edges."  I  remember  how 
my  bigger  brother  used  to  crowd  me  out  of  a  warm  spot  and 
take  the  place  in  the  center  of  the  bunch  himself;  but  one 


night  he  got  too  warm  and  sweaty  and  in  the  morning  it  was 
very  cold,  so  he  caught  a  bad  cold,  and,  some  way,  it  went  to 
his  head  and  Oh !  what  a  sight !  His  eyes  were  swollen  and  sore ; 
his  nose  refused  to  do  its  work ;  his  throat  got  sore,  and  such  a 
smell  came  from  him  that  we  could  hardly  stand  it.  He  died. 
Then  the  sister  that  I  thought  the  most  of  was  taken  the  same 
way  and  soon  went  the  same  road.  Two  more  died  from  cold 
and  lice,  and  I,  alone,  was  left.  I  had  to  scratch  for  a  living 
then  I  tell  you,  for  master  always  fed  us  all  together,  and  if  I 
had  any  food,  it  was  picked  up  between  the  pecks  of  hens  or 
from  between*  the  toes  of  the  roosters.  Still  I  kept  on  growing 


MY   AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


109 


and  bye  and  bye  I  could  fly  into  a  pepper  tree  to  roost,  and  I 
will  admit  that  the  mites  were  not  so  bad  there  as  where  we  first 
roosted — on  the  ground.  I  always  did  hate  it  though  to  have 
to  get  up  and  turn  round  in  the  night,  if  the  wind  changed,  to 
keep  it  from  blowing  under  my  feathers.  I  grew  to  be  pretty 
big  for  I  was  from  large  parentage,  and  how  proud  I  was  when 
I  first  made  an  attempt  to  crow,  and  actually  succeeded.  It 
was  in  the  early  morning  and  all  the  older  roosters  were  crow- 
ing their  level  best  and  they  turned  to  look  my  way  and  scold 
when  I  crowed,  so  I  made  up  my  mind  I  would  crow  harder 
next  time,  and  I  made  such  a  strong  and  vigorous  effort  that 
I  lost  my  balance  and  fell  to  the  earth  with  a  screech. 

Then  the  hens  all  laughed  and  the  oldest  cock  made  a  sage 
remark  about  pride  before  destruction  and  a  haughty  spirit 
before  a  fall. 

They  had  little  time  to  poke  fun  at  me,  however,  for  that 
night  I  was  sold  to  a  lady  by  the  name  of  Miss  Seek  Advice. 
It  would  take  me  a  long  time  to  tell  you  all  I  went  through 
during  her  ownership,  and  I  shall  never  try  to  do  it,  but  I  did 
pass  some  very  uncomfortable  times  there  to  be  sure. 

My  mistress  was  a  very  estimable  lady  who  had  moulted  sev- 
eral times  since  her  youth ;  but  I  never  thought  less  because  of 
the  years  she  had  scratched  out.  Indeed,  having  now  acquired 
with  my  age,  more  of  an  ability  to  distinguish  the  good  or  bad 
traits  in  my  human  friends,  I  took  quite  a  liking  to  my  new 
owner.  Her  motives  were  of  the  best  and  if  she  made  us  un- 
comfortable she,  too,  was  sorry. 

Her  very  kindness  often  caused  trouble  and  even  brought 
disaster  to  our  roost,  for  here  we  had  a  roost.  My  mistress 
had  "started  small,  intending  to  work  up,"  and  mostly  she  was 
worked  up.  I  was  soon  the  head  of  the  flock  which  made  me 
the  husband  of  ten  wives. 


110 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 


Someone  told  her  that  ten  wives  was  the  right  number  for 
one  cockerel  to  have,  so  ten  it  was. 

None  of  my  wives  were  of  my  color  or  shape,  but  they  all 
declared  themselves  to  be  well  bred.  I  believed  it.  We  were  to 
produce  crossed  chicks  that  were  to  lay  like  Mediterraneans, 
be  as  heavy  as  Asiatics  and  as  vigorous  and  compact  as  Ameri- 
cans. 

Mistress  was  told  that  she  must  have  a  tight  house  with  no 
drafts  over  her  chickens,  so  our  house  was  as  tight  as  a  tomb, 
and  just  as  foul  of  smell. 

Perhaps  you  think  we  can't  smell  and  that  air  with  the  oxy- 
gen all  worn  out  of  it  is  agreeable  to  us.  Why  my  sense  of 
smell  is  so  acute  that  I  wouldn't  stay  in  a  human  house  over 
night  for  anything.  Humans  can't  smell  or  they  never  would 
eat  and  drink  the  things  they  do.  Coffee  and  ice  cream  may 
smell  and  taste  very  good  to  you  but  they  are  not  to  be  com- 
pared in  flavor  or  aroma  to  a  nice  fresh  bunch  of  juicy  little 
white  worms  that  we  get  from  good  ripe  meat.  I  am  just 
telling  you  this  to  show  you  that  tastes  and  smell  differ;  and 
now  one  more  idea  that  may  be  new  to  you :  Nothing  in  the  air 
is  more  disagreeable  or  deleterious  to  an  animal  of  almost  any 
kind  than  the  discharges  and  exhalations  from  its  own  body 
or  that  of  its  kind. 

For  these  reasons  have  I  wished  many  a  night  that  I  could 
pick^a  hole  in  the  side  of  our  sealed  up  house  and  let  in  a 
draft  of  fresh  air.  I  was  th-nki'v  of  this  one  day  as  I  stood  on 
one  foot  overlooking  my  hens,  when  my  mistress  came  out  with 
a  strange  man  who  proved  to  be  a  carpenter.  Someone  had 
told  her  that  we  needed  more  air  in  the  house  and  that  we  must 
be  kept  dry  at  the  same  time,  so  taking  the  advice  of  several 
friends  she  had  the  roof  of  our  house  raised  till  it  looked 
like  the  tower  over  the  "angel's  flight,"  and  the  sides  were  filled 
in  with  latticework. 


MY    AUTOBIOGRAPHY  ni 

I  liked  the  looks  of  it  and  hoped  for  fresh  air  now,  and  of 
course  I  got  it.  I  was  reminded  of  my  former  experience  of 
sleeping  in  trees,  but  this  was  better  in  that  we  had  a  roof  over 
us,  and  even  a  lath  helps  to  break  the  wind.  Our  roosts  were 
raised  so  high  however,  to  keep  us  dry,  that  we  several  times 
hurt  our  feet  when  we  jumped  down  in  the  morning;  indeed 
two  of  my  plumpest  wives  were  permanently  lamed. 

When  the  carpenter  got  our  house  opened  so  he  could  see 
the  inside,  he  called  the  mistress  to  show  her  little  mounds  of 
red  mites  in  every  corner  and  in  every  nail  hole.  If  he  had 
had  eyes  and  a  nose  as  sharp  as  mine  he  could  have  seen  germs 
of  consumption  and  diphtheria  and  all  sorts  of  ailments  right 
among  the  mites  and  nits,  and  if  we  had  been  kept  in  that  tight 
house  when  the  little  chicks  came  along  there  would  have  been 
a  "mysterious  taking  off"  among  our  family. 

As  it  was,  we  came  nea-r  all  being  taken  off,  for  our  mistress 
hurried  to  ask  her  neighbors  what  was  the  best  thing  to  do  for 
mites  and  she  got  advice  both  free  and  costly  in  the  same  chunk. 

One  said,  "put  in  ashes" ;  another  said  "whitewash  the  coop." 
Another  advised  the  free  use  of  insect  powder.  Still  another 
insisted  that  painting  the  roosts  with  crude  petroleum  was 
cheap  and  effective.  Another  knew  of  a  prepared  lice  killer 
that  killed  lice  with  its  fumes.,  while  a  dear  friend  said  that 
coal  oil  and  carbolic  acid  would  do  the  work.  Uncle  Zeb  told 
her  that  tobacco  juice  would  kill  mites,  lice,  ants,  fleas,  rose- 
bugs,  roaches,  spiders,  plant  lice,  slugs,  coddling  moth,  black 
scale,  and — but  by  this  time  she  had  her  crop  full  of  advice,  and 
went  away  by  herself  to  digest  it.  The  result  was  a  deluge  of 
ashes  and  six  kinds  of  guaranteed  lice  powders  thrown  into 
our  house,  followed  by  a  spray  of  whitewash  in  which  the  lime 
had  been  slacked  with  tobacco  water,  and  into  this  was  dumped 
coal  oil,  carbolic  acid,  lice  killer,  and  crude  petroleum  until  the 


112 


POULTRY    WEST    OF    THE    ROCKIES. 


fumes  were  like  those  of  the  Stygian  depths,  and  our  sense  of 
smell  was  far  more  acute  than  we  wished  it  was. 

One  nice  little  wife  fell  off  the  roost  before  morning,  and  the 
rest  of  us  had  sore  eyes  and  sore  feet  for  many  a  day. 

The  mites  mostly  died  or  hid  in  our  feathers,  but  by  the  time 
the  house  became  cleared  of  the  horrible  smells  the  mites  had 
again  begun  to  build  their  nests  and  rear  their  numerous  off- 
spring, while  the  old  germs  of  many  kinds  formed  new  habita- 
tions on  the  ruins  of  the  old  like  the  human  Carthagenians. 

I  wanted  to  tell  the  mistress  that  the  worst  enemy  of  these 
pests  was  sunshine,  and  that  their  deeds  were  so  evil  that  they 
preferred  darkness  to  light;  but  I  couldn't  make  her  under- 
stand. She  was  not  getting  as  many  eggs  as  she  thought  we 
ought  to  furnish  her  so  she  asked  her  neighbors  the  reason 
why.  Of  course  they  told  her ;  they  knew. 

One  told  her  a  wheat  ration  was  the  best  for  laying  hens, 
so  we  had  wheat  three  times  a  day  till  it  seemed  that  my  tail 
was  made  of  wheat  straw  and  my  eyes  were  filled  with  chaff. 
Still  the  eggs  were  too  few.  On  another's  advice  she  tried  a 
corn  diet,  and  we  ate  corn,  corn,  corn,  until  one  hen  was  too 
fat  to  fly  up  to  our  high  perch,  and  I  became  too  lazy  to  crow 
more  than  thirty  cents'  worth. 

Still  advice  was  sought,  and  of  course  found:  We  had 
green  stuff  of  all  sorts — cabbages,  onions,  tomatoes,  beets  and 
every  kind  of  grass,  with  a  little  bran  for  tonic  or  something; 
I  don't  know  just  what  the  bran  was  for. 

Then  we  got  thin  fast  enough,  but  the  egg  basket  was  thinner 
than  ever. 

We  were  then  treated  to  a  diet  of  table  scraps,  but  in  order 
to  get  enough  of  this  food,  several  of  the  neighbors  were  asked 
to  contribute;  also  a  village  boarding  house. 

These  places  were  visited  every  other  day  and  when  we  re- 
ceived the  messes  donated,  the  sour  condition  of  the  food  re- 


MY    AUTOBIOGRAPHY.  H3 

minded  us  of  church  donations  which  were  used  as  a  means  of 
proving  the  text :  "It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive." 

This  diet  so  nearly  disheartened  me  that  I  longed  for  the 
hatchet,  and  the  eggs  laid  wouldn't  hatch  at  all.  I  never  blamed 
the  eggs. 

Uncle  Zeb  read  in  the  paper  that  a  certain  compound,  called 
"White  Stodge"  would  make  hens  lay  whether  or  no,  so  away 
went  the  mistress  to  buy  "White  Stodge,"  but  like  Mother 
Hubbard  she  still  found  a  bare  cupboard.  Other  tonics  and 
egg  fcods  were  tried  with  like  results  until  the  poor  woman 
sold  us  all  to  a  Mrs.  Read  well,  who  kept  us  until  a  few  weeks 
ago. 

This  new  mistress  seemed  to  have  bought  fowls  from  many 
people,  most  of  whom  had  made  more  failures  than  money, 
and  seemed  to  be  in  the  business  for  the  experience  they  re- 
ceived. 

Some  she  bought  from  Mr.  Feedquick,  who  would  toss  the 
hens  a  few  handfuls  of  grain  whenever  he  happened  to  think  of 
it,  and  then  turn  his  back  and  not  look  at  them  again  till  the 
"spirit  moved  him"  to  repeat.  He  didn't  love  chicken?  he  said, 
and  I  am  told  he  soon  had  few  to  love. 

Some  chickens  Mrs.  Readwell  bought  from  Mrs.  Change, 
who  kept  well  bred  stock  but  by  the  time  she  knew  enough 
about  one  breed  to  tell  a  prize  winner  from  a  cull,  she  would 
tire  of  the  breed  and  try  another.  Among  those  fowls  were 
some  of  my  most  highly  respected  friends,  not  to  say  sweet- 
hearts. 

As  I  have  told  you,  I  am  from  good  stock  myself,  and  as 
our  mistress  was  a  good  judge  of  the  merits  of  birds,  we  were 
well  sorted  and  well  mated. 

Our  food  was  not  all  one  sort,  but  what  we  most  wanted 
seemed  to  be  what  was  given. 

If  the  weather  was  cold,  we  had  a  hot  hash  for  breakfast; 


114  POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 

but  the  exact  style  of  it  was  often  changed.  We  ate  corn, 
wheat,  vegetables — raw  and  cooked;  barley,  scraps,  bone, 
greens  and  whatever  else  came  our  way.  I  soon  grew  to  be 
glad  that  I  was  alive  and  glad  to  see  my  mistress  come  into  the 
yard  at  any  time  for  she  most  always  had  some  nice  morsel  for 
us,  and  would  walk  around  and  talk  to  us  as  if  she  was  one  of 
us. 

I  was  glad  to  notice  at  the  first  that  she  would  not  let  the 
hens  set,  not  even  over  night. 

If  there  is  anything  I  detest  it  is  an  old  setting  hen — crabbed, 
crusty  old  thing.  She  is  a  stirrer  up  of  strife  and  commotion ;  a 
disturber  of  the  peace  of  home ;  a  perfect  virago  and  a  breeder 
of  mites. 

So  I  was  pleased  to  see  every  setter  landed  in  a  yard  remote 
from  her  own,  upon  the  first  indication  of  the  setting  fever. 
All  our  chicks  were  hatched  by  an  incubator,  and  raised  in  a 
brooder  where  they  were  kept  warm  and  dry  and  clean  and 
fed  just  a  little  less  than  they  wanted  of  all  sorts  of  food. 
And  there  you  have  the  secret  of  my  mistress's  success  in  rais- 
ing chicks.  Our  houses  were  different  from  those  for  young 
chicks,  and  never  by  any  chance  were  they  allowed  to  roost 
with  us  or  eat  with  us. 

The  chick's  houses  were  small  affairs  about  four  feet  square 
and  one  shake  (three  feet)  high,  with  a  comb  roof  and  one 
whole  end  up  to  the  eaves,  hinged  at  the  bottom  so  it  could 
be  opened  clear  down  to  let  in  the  sunshine.  The  roosts  were 
like  an  oven  grate,  all  fastened  together  and  could  be  easily  re- 
moved. The  floor  was  raised,  or  rather  the  whole  house 
was  raised  from  the  ground  a  foot,  and  the  floor  made  slant- 
ing, almost  up  to  the  roosts  at  the  back  so  that  the  chicks  could 
not  bunch  up  at  the  back  corners  to  smother,  but  would  step 
up  on  the  roosts.  These  houses  were  tighter  than  ours,  but  a 
few  cracks  never  killed  a  healthy,  clean  chick. 


DUCKS.  115 

Our  houses  were  mostly  without  floors  and  raised  slightly 
from  the  ground ;  the  roosts  were  like  those  for  the  chicks,  only 
placed  about  two  feet  from  the  bottom,  and  we  had  more  space 
over  our  heads.  Our  houses  were  not  for  warmth,  and  we 
don't  need  it,  but  rather  for  a  dry  shelter. 

Some  of  our  houses  were  larger  than  others,  but  all  could  be 
opened  out  to  the  sun  or  tipped  up  for  the  sunshine  to  get  in. 

A  little  attention  to  cleanliness  and  once  in  a  while  a  dash  of 
some  good  disinfectant  kept  us  free  from  lice,  and  we  scratched 
a  good  many  dollars'  out  of  the  litter  thrown  into  our  yards. 

I  am  getting  too  old  to  be  of  much  more  use,  except  for  eat- 
ing, so  Mrs.  Readwell  sold  me  to  a  dealer,  and  I  am  just  waiting 
here  for  some  decent  person  to  buy  me,  who  will  kill  me  merci- 
fully and  cook  me  properly.  Then  I  may  have  it  said  of  me: 
"He  does  us  good  even  after  death." 

J.  H. 


DUCKS. 

Duck  culture  in  California  has  made  so  little  progress  that 
but  few  rules  of  care  and  management  have  been  discovered 
as  belonging  particularly  to  this  Coast.  This  is  not  as  it  should 
be  and  the  reasons,  while  not  very  far  to  seek,  are  not  well 
enough  understood.  Very  few  raisers  of  ducks  in  this  country 
have  stuck  to  the  industry  for  two  years,  while  the  vast  ma- 
jority quit  the  first  fall.  Under  these  conditions  a  goodly  num- 
ber of  ducks  are  raised,  but  the  science  of  duck-raising  makes 
no  progress. 

It  is  a  matter  of  daily  regret  among  California  poultry  breed- 
ers that  so  few  of  us  are  poultry  fanciers,  and  ducks  have  suf- 
fered to  the  extreme  in  this  respect.  The  writer  is  acquainted 


116  POULTRY   WEST   OF  THE    ROCKIES. 

with  only  one  man  in  California  who  could  be  called  a  fancier 
of  ducks,  and  even  he  devotes  most  of  his  time  to  other  poultry, 
birds  and  dogs.  In  fact,  in  the  eyes  of  everyone,  except  a  very 
few  park  managers  and  a  still  smaller  number  of  breeders, 
ducks  are  good  to  eat  and  that  is  all.  So  far  then  as  the  Far 
West  is  concerned,  the  success  of  the  duck  depends  upon  the 
market.  Fortunately  the  number  of  ducks  called  for  is  fairly 
large.  Resident  Calif ornians  eat  but  few  ducks.  The  demand 
comes  from  tourists  and  Chinese.  The  former  visit  us  in  win- 
ter when  no  ducks  are  to  be  had — they  are  willing  to  pay  good 
prices,  but  their  demand  is  never  satisfied.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  thrifty  Chinaman  takes  his  ducks  when  he  is  able  to  buy 
them  at  his  own  price,  which,  owing  to  the  demoralized  state 
of  production  is  the  case  during  the  latter  part  of  each  season. 
Unlike  chickens,  ducks  must  be  marketed  when  they  have 
reached  the  desired  size ;  the  breeder  cannot  afford  to  feed  them 
until  next  winter  in  hopes  of  a  better  market.  In  Los  Angeles, 
in  summer,  the  price  of  live  ducks  falls  to  seven  cents  a  pound ; 
and  often  a  large  percentage  of  that  part  of  the  year's  crop 
which  goes  to  commission  houses  and  dealers  is  sold  at  not  more 
than  eight  cents  a  pound.  In  winter  and  spring  prices  in  the 
open  market  reach  twelve  to  fourteen  cents  for  the  old  and 
inferior  ducks  offered  then.  If  some  enterprising  breeder  can 
arrange  to  bring  his  crop  on  the  market  in  the  early  spring; 
if  he  can  produce  goo'd  young  ducks  and  enough  of  them  so 
that  it  will  pay  him  to  develop  his  own  market,  he  can  get 
twenty  cents  a  pound  for  his  output.  I  do  not  mean  to  argue 
that  it  is  easy  to  produce  ducks  out  of  season,  but  it  would 
appear  that  either  the  seven  cent  price  is  ridiculous  or  the 
twenty  cent  price  is  profitable.  Good  prices  cannot  be  found  in 
Southern  California  outside  of  Los  Angeles  and  the  larger 
towns  situated  directly  on  the  Coast.  Good  prices  cannot  be  ob- 
tained by  consigning  a  shipment  of  ducks  to  a  commission 


PEKIN    DUCKS. 


117 


house.  The  owner  must  go  to  town  and  sell  his  ducks  him- 
self. If  he  lives  too  far  away  for  that,  it  makes  no  difference 
how  big  a  lake  there  may  be  in  his  neighborhood,  he  had  better 
let  duck  raising  alone. 

We  have  had  a  glance  at  the  condition  of  the  market.  The 
next  question  is  the  cost  of  production.  This  involves  the 
whole  science  of  duck  breeding,  and  would  require  a  larger 
book  than  this  whole  volume  to  be  treated  completely;  but  we 
will  find  a  few  main  points,  the  first  of  which  shall  be  the  se- 
lection of  a  breed.  Nine  breeds  are  recognized  in  the  Ameri- 
can Standard;  of  these  four  have  appeared  in  California, 
namely,  Pekin,  Indian  Runner,  Muscovy,  and  Rouen.  The 
last  named  is  also  incorrectly  called  Mallard  on  account  of  its 
resemblance  to  the  wild  Mallard  in  color. 


PEKIN    DUCKS. 

These  are  the  ones  most  raised ;  they  are  the  largest,  have  the 
best  color,  grow  fastest,  and,  I  think,  the  majority  of  duck 
raisers  consider  them  the  best.  They  are  the  most  noisy  of 
the  four  and  the  most  timid.  In  fact,  in  some  flocks,  it  is 
hardly  possible  for  the  attendant  to  go  among  them,  especially 
to  catch  one,  without  causing  a  perfect  panic.  At  such  times 
wings  are  always  made  to  bleed,  and  sometimes  a  wing  is 
wrenched  out  of  shape,  a  hip  dislocated  or  a  duck  injured  in- 
ternally. Ten  minutes  after  this  crazy  display  of  fear,  these 
same  ducks  will  eat  from  a  pail  held  in  the  same  attendant's 
hands.  Unfortunately,  Pekin  ducks  are  not  the  only  ones  who 
have  this  peculiarity,  but  I  think  they  are  the  worst. 

The  average  Pekin  duck,  if  well  cared  for,  will  lay  about 
140  eggs  per  year,  and  during  the  time  that  she  is  laying  at 


118  POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE   ROCKIES. 

all,  she  will  lay  an  egg  nearly  every  day.  Thus  her  full  number 
will  be  finished  within  the  first  six  months  of  the  calendar, 
while  during  the  last  six — July  to  December — she  will  bring 
her  keeper  nothing  but  her  astonishingly  voracious  appetite. 
It  is  not  usually  profitable  to  set  the  late  summer  eggs  and 
hatch  seven  cent  ducks,  so  she  must  be  marketed  before  the 
laying  season  is  over,  or  be  kept  over  till  next  year,  thus  being 
fed  twelve  month  for  the  sake  of  what  she  can  do  in  four  or 
five.  In  California,  Pekin  ducks  often  lay  out  of  season,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  that  if  such  individuals  were  selected  and 
bred  from,  the  important  problem  of  having  ducks  at  the 
season  when  they  are  wanted,  could  be  solved  within  five 
years. 

The  next  most  important  breed  is  the  Indian  Runner — the 
great  egg  duck.  Indian  Runner  ducks  lay  more  eggs  that  a  hen 
as  a  rule,  frequently  passing  the  high  mark  of  200  eggs  a  year 
for  each  duck.  They  reach  a  little  more  than  half  the  weight 
of  the  Pekins  but  will  get  up  to  three  pounds — a  proper  size  for 
marketing — just  about  as  young  as  the  Pekins.  I  do  not  think 
they  will  average  four  days  longer  in  coming  to  market  size. 
With  chickens  one  might  disregard  this  as  a  trifle,  but  with 
ducks  this  is  not  a  trifle,  and  the  man  who  keeps  his  ducks  two 
weeks  after  they  are  ready  for  market,  will  hardly  succeed  in 
the  business. 

The  most  important  point  in  favor  of  the  Indian  Runner 
is  that  she  will  lay  the  year  round.  To  be  sure  she  will  gradu- 
ally quit  when  she  moults  but  the  young  ducks  will  be  laying 
before  that  time.  I  have  known  them  to  lay  at  four  months 
and  three  days  old.  In  the  experience  of  this  writer,  covering 
only  one  season,  the  fertility  of  the  eggs  laid  during  the  moult- 
ing season  by  young  and  old  alike,  was  very  bad,  at  one  time 
yielding  only  about  ten  ducklings  to  the  hundred  untested 
eggs.  These  eggs  were  laid  in  September  by  ducks  hatched 


PEKIN    DUCKS. 


119 


the  preceding  April.  If  these  ducks  had  been  hatched  in 
January,  as  they  could  have  been,  I  believe  their  eggs  would 
have  been  fertile  in  the  fall.  Other  breeders  report  much  better 
fertility,  the  next  year,  from  the  offspring  of  these  same  ducks, 
still  as  a  rule  these  early  fall  eggs  do  not  hatch  well.  In 
spite  of  this  trouble  it  would  appear  that  the  Indian  Runner 
is  practically  the  only  profitable  duck  under  average  California 
conditions,  though  we  may  hope  for  the  development  of  an 
egg  strain  of  Pekins. 

The  Muscovy  duck  is  popular  in  California  because  it  was 
well  pushed  here  several  years  ago  and  has  simply  remained  on 
the  ground.  It  is  an  exceedingly  interesting  breed,  but,  from 
the  market  man's  point  of  view,  it  has  nothing  to  commend  it. 
Its  only  advantages  over  the  Pekin,  are:  First,  that  it  has  no 
voice,  and  so  cannot  disturb  the  neighbors  with  squawking; 
and,  second,  that  its  meat  has  a  characteristic  gamey  flavor, 
different  from  that  of  any  other  duck.  Some  persons  are  ex- 
ceedingly fond  of  Muscovy  duck,  but  it  brings  no  better  price 
in  the  market. 

The  Rouen  duck  is  a  French  breed,  in  color  closely  resem- 
bling the  American  Wild  Mallard,  and  in  size,  shape  and  use- 
fulness, similar  to  the  Pekin.  It  is  generally  acknowledged  to 
be  behind  the  Pekin  in  practical  points,  but  only  a  very  little 
behind. 

In  the  rearing  of  ducks  only  a  few  points  are  found  to  be 
essentially  Californian.  The  first  is  that  here  the  duck  must  be 
kept  in  the  brooders  longer.  It  is  profitable  to  furnish  them 
artificial  heat  until  two  weeks  old.  Ducklings  should  be  raised 
in  brooders — not  by  hens.  They  may  be  hatched  by  hens  or 
by  incubators  either,  but  if  you  are  raising  ducks  as  a  business, 
you  will  use  incubators. 

Other  points  are  as  to  feed.  Green  food  and  meat  are  pri- 
mary necessities.  In  the  East,  where  the  birds  run  on  grass. 


POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 

there  is  very  little  in  the  way  of  a  green-food-problem,  but  here, 
the  lack  of  green  has  caused  many  a  failure.  You  must  raise 
it  yourself — not  buy  it  of  the  Chinaman — have  plenty  of  it 
at  all  seasons  and  for  all  ages  of  birds.  In  other  words,  the 
profitable  duck  ranch  is  so  situated  that  it  can  yield  a  plenti- 
ful supply  of  alfalfa,  and  if  you  propose  to  raise  ducks  as  a 
side  issue,  as  is  usually  the  case,  but  have  not  the  space  or 
conditions  for  an  ample  supply  of  green,  you  cannot  make 
duck  raising  profitable.  Remember  that  ducks  are  very  gross 
feeders  and  must  be  filled  up  on  green  stuff,  or  they  will  eat 
their  heads  off. 

The  dry  blood  or  meat  meal  mixed  in  the  mash  will  answer 
well  as  meat,  but  the  duck  raiser  who  is  situated  where  he 
can  get  very  cheap  meat  and  feed  it  freely,  especially  to  breed- 
ing stock,  has  a  long  advantage  over  competitors.  The  most 
successful  duck  ranch  I  know  of  in  California  is  conducted  by 
the  wife  of  a  man  who  has  a  slaughter  house.  Aside  from 
such  a  special  advantage,  an  ideal  location  for  a  California 
duck  farm  is  a  well-watered,  not  too  high-priced  piece  of  land 
situated  very  near  to  a  port  where  the  fishermen  come  in.  The 
fishermen  throw  back  into  the  sea  countless  tons  of  wholesome 
fish  that  are  not  considered  suitable  for  human  food,  and  that 
they  would  sell  to  the  duck  man  for  a  mere  song  if  he  were 
located  close  at  hand. 

Ideas  for  the  general  care  and  feeding  of  ducks  on  this  coast 
may  be  gotten  from  any  eastern  writer  of  experience  better 
than  from  a  local  man  who  has  raised  ducks  as  Californians 
do,  and  this  experimenter  feels  that  he  can  benefit  the  public 
most  by  leaving  this  important  branch  of  the  subject  to  able 
duck  breeders,  who  have  already  written  wisely  and  exhaust- 
ively on  the  subject.  G.  R.  ALHKRS. 


FOOD   VALUES.  121 


FOOD  VALUES. 

In  feeding  for  eggs,  there  should  be  not  only  a  variety  of 
foods  used,  but  the  elements  of  the  eggs  should  be  partly  un- 
derstood, and  the  elements  of  the  different  foods,  so  that  the 
food  consumed  may  be  as  nearly  as  possible  composed  of  the 
egg  elements  in  the  same  proportion  as  the  egg. 

James  Dryden,  of  the  Utah  Experiment  Station,  says  that 
an  egg  is  made  up  of  10.81  per  cent  shell,  32.47  per  cent  yolk, 
and  56.72  white. 

The  shell  is  carbonate  of  lime. 

The  yolk  is  composed  of  50  per  cent  water,  15.5  per  cent  pro- 
tien,  33.4  per  cent  fat,  and  about  .01  per  cent  mineral  matter. 

Of  the  white,  86.48  per  cent  is  water,  12.07  Per  cent  Pro" 
tein,  and  .23  per  cent  fat,  and  .34  per  cent  mineral  matter. 

In  order,  then,  to  keep  up  the  strength  of  the  hen  and  have 
her  produce  the  largest  possible  number  of  eggs,  it  has  been 
found  that  for  every  pound  of  protein  she  must  have  about 
four  pounds  of  carbohydrates,  and  this  will  vary  slightly,  as 
the  hen  needs  more  of  the  heat  and  energy-producing  carbo- 
hydrates during  cool  weather  than  in  the  warmer  part  of  the 
year. 

Those  foods  which  we  have  in  the  West  which  are  richest 
in  protien  come  in  the  following  order:  Meat  scraps  (lean), 
dried  blood,  cottonseed  meal,  linseed  meal,  middlings,  bran. 

Those  rich  in  carbohydrates  are,  rye,  corn,  wheat,  oats  bran, 
alfalfa  hay  and  linseed  meal. 

Some  of  these  foods  which  have  a  fair  supply  of  both  ele- 
ments might  be  a  good  ration,  except  for  the  fact  that  a  hen 
cannot  digest  enough  of  them. 

With  those  foods  which  are  strong  enough  in  one  element, 
she  must  have  enough  of  that  which  is  strong  in  the  other  to 
give  her  the  elements  to  make  eggs  of. 


122  POULTRY   WEST   OF   THE    ROCKIES. 


A   FEW    STATISTICS. 

Mr.  W.  B.  Barnwell  of  the  Santa  Fe  Railroad  Co.  has  very 
kindly  furnished  me  with  the  following  facts  and  figures,  which 
will  be  of  great  interest  to  'all  poultrymen : 

There  is  practically  "no  live  poultry  shipped  into  Southern 
California. 

"Northern  California  will  handle  approximately  seventy-five 
cars  from  over  the  'Divide'  each  year. 

"Of  dressed  poultry,  Southern  California  will  handle  about 
twenty  cars,  and  Northern  California  one  hundred  cars  yearly. 

"Southern  California  imports  about  one  hundred  cars,  each 
containing  four  hundred  cases,  annually." 

This,  reduced  to  dozens,  is  12,000  dozen  per  car,  a  total  of 
1,200,000  dozens,  or  14,400,000  eggs. 

As  you  will  notice  by  reference  to  shipments  reported  at 
San  Francisco  last  year,  from  January  first  to  November  nth, 
the  total  of  Eastern  eggs  was  50,749  cases,  or  608,988,000 
eggs. 

The  poultry  business  is  a  small  thing,  but  at  the  low  aver- 
age of  1 8  cents  per  dozen,  these  eggs  cost  us  the  nice  sum  of 
$9,350,820. 

The  total  poultry  product  of  the  United  States  for  a  year  is 
estimated  at  over  $560,000,000.  Small,  isn't  it? 


STANDARD    WEIGHTS. 


123 


Standard  Weights  of  Leading  Varieties  and  Principal 
Disqualifications. 


VARIETY 

WEIGHT 

DISQUALIFICATIONS 

CocklC'kr'l 

Hen 

Pullet 

Light  Brahma  

Dark  Brahma  
Buff  Partridge  and 
White  Cochins  

Black  Cochins  
Langshans  

12 

11 
11 

10 

10 

9 
9 

9 

8 

8 
8 

sy2 

7  2 

8 

7 
7 

7 
6 

6^ 

Shanks,    other    than    yellow,    black 
feathers  in  back;  black  spots   in 
feathers,  except  stripe  in  saddle 
and  cape. 
Light  Weight  and  Vulture  Hocks. 

Vulture  Hocks  and  less  than  9,  7  and  5. 

Vulture  Hocks  and  less  than  9,  7  and  5. 
Yellow  skin,  or  yellow   on  bottom  of 
feet. 
Permanent    white    in    ear    lobes    for 
right  color. 
Solid  white    ear  lobes.    Comb  other 
than  rose,  or  too  large. 

One-half  ear  lobe  red  ;  shanks    other 
than  blue  ;  white  feathers. 
One-third  ear  lobes  red  ;  any  foreign 
color  in  plumage. 

Plymouth  Rocks.... 
Wyandottes  .  
Javas 

Leghorns 

Andalusian  

8  2 

6j| 

i 

% 

Minorcas  

SAN  FRANCISCO,  Nov.  14,  1901. 
EGGS  IN  SAN  FRANCISCO. 


Statistics  taken  from  the  records  of  the  San  Francisco  Dairy  Exchang-e,  showing" 
le  rise  and  fall  in  receipts  and  the  averag-e  quotation  for  each  week  during-  the  year. 


the  r 


WKEK  ENDING 

EGGS 

QUOTATION 
COAST 
CENTS. 

RECEIPTS  CASES 

COAST. 

EASTERN. 

Jan. 
Feb. 

14 

March 

April 
ii 

14 
kl 

May 

June 
ii 

14 
14 

July 

1  1 

1  1 
Aug. 

14 

14 
II 

Sept. 

<i 

Oct. 

« 

<« 

ii 

Nov. 

« 

8 

30 
27 
26 
27 
24# 
19 
17 
14 
13 
12# 
13# 
13# 
13>^ 
15 
15 
15# 
15 
15 
14# 
14# 
14 
14# 
16 

I'M 

K% 

16 
16 
19 

18 
19 
20^ 
23 
23 
26 
27 
29 
32/2 
32y2 
34 
34 
39 
39 
39 
39 
42 

3,533 
3,363 
3,336 
4,375 
5,471 
6,433 
7,114 
7,363 
8,653 
9,842 
9,429 
9,952 
9,566 
9,422 
8,387 
8,926 
8,836 
8,587 
8,852 
7,874 
7,414 
6,782 
6,415 
6,532 
6,320 
5,824 
4,926 
5,547 
5,193 
4,395 
4,205 
4,000 
3,705 
3,437 
3,314 
3,415 
2,926 
2,818 
2,554 
2,346 
2,205 
2,237 
2,239 
2,156 
1,977 

389 

385 
2,043 
1,736 
2,202 
3,158 
5,220 
2,790 
1,200 
1,265 

780 
1,268 
2,842 
385 
1,024 
385 
385 
1,204 

770 
3,030 
1,813 
1,980 
3,358 
2,006 
600 
1,200 
2,155 
1,195 
1,177 
2,654 
1,144 

15 

22                      .... 

29                         .  . 

5                

12               

19  
26  
5  
12  

19  

26 

2 

9 

16 

23 

30  

7  

14  

21  

28  

4  

11 

18 

25 

2  

8  

16  

23 

30 

6 

13 

20 

27  

3  

10  

17  

24 

1 

8  

15  

22  

29 

4 

11  

To  Poultry  Raisers: 

Thousands  of  people  in  this  country 
have  received  financial  benefit 
through  the  use  of  Morris'  Poulty  Cure, 
and  we  are  anxious  to  extend  its  use  to 
every  poultry  man  on  the  Pacific  Coast. 
While  many  "Egg  Foods"  and  "Condition 
Powders"  are  being  placed  on  the 
market,  we  desire  to  remind  you  that 
Morris'  Poultry  Cure  is  the  only  abso- 
lute Poultry  Cure  yet  discovered. 
Morris'  Poultry  Cure  expels  colds  and 
regulates  the  liver.  Keep  your  poultry 
free  from  colds  and  their  livers  in 
healthy  condition  and  you  will  have 
little  sickness  to  contend  with.  Morris' 
Poultry  Cure  aids  digestion  and  assim- 
ilation. With  its  aid  your  poultry 
will  digest  and  assimilate  more  food, 
yielding  you  more  eggs,  and  fattening 
for  market  very  much  quicker. 

Morris'  Poultry  Cure  is  just  the 
thing  to  put  poultry  in  condition 
for  exhibiting. 

We  sell  under  a  positive  guarantee 
to  refund  money  if  remedy  does  not 
cure.   This  applies  to  all  diseases  of 
poultry.   Send  in  your  name  and  address 
for  trial  package. 

Respectfully  yours, 
MORRIS  POULTRY  AND  STOCK  CURE  CO. 

123  California  St.  ,  San  Francisco,  Cal. 
135  W.  14th  St.,  Los  Angeles,  Cal. 
145  41st  St.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 


ii  . 


%&*** 


t™VERSITy  OP 


LIBRARY 


STAMPED  BELOW 


er  das 


MAR 


11 


*^5 


itisil 

:,.'','  ;:;••.-  wM^WWAV 

illlii 


